Wings Of A Feather
by icefox94
Summary: The School discovers the existence of the Greek gods and their children. What do you think they'll do when they find baby Percy in the maternity ward of a New York hospital? haven't decided if there will be any pairings. title by Bladechicka
1. Prologue: Kidnapped

icefox94: hello everyone. I'm back with another of my stories. amazingly enough, i'm writing this on my own. Most of my stories are written with the help of Bladechicka, so this is slightly surprising. Though it seems that the only inspiration that I can get for stories lately are crossovers. So irritating! This is a really odd combo between Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Maximum Ride.

About the odd title, I had no idea what to call this and I was talking to Bladechicka about it when she just blurted out "Wings Of A Feather!" then we had a good laugh about how the saying is suppose to be birds of a feather and something about each feather being a little wing and something about Nico Robin (One Piece)'s cien fluer technique that gives her wings made out of hands.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympian or Maximum Ride. Percy Jackson and the Olympians is owned by Rick Rhiordan and Maximum Ride is owned(she would kill me if she heard me say that! ^^()) by James Patterson.

Oh, and one more thing. I love comments about my story and I love it when people critique my writing cause I can't get better unless I know what I am doing wrong. What I do not like is people insulting my work just because they don't like it and think its stupid. If you don't have anything nice to say about the story or my writing style, or something to improve my writing, then don't say anything at all. You don't have to read the story and you don't have to review. You don't like it, just click the back button and forget you ever came across this story so I don't have to hear about things you hate that I don't want to change. And critiquing doesn't mean something like "your writing style sucks. Take some freaking writing classes." or something. There are ways to critique kindly, which is what I would prefer to see. I know not all people are rude like that. Some don't even realize their being rude. I just wanted to say this so people might watch what they say so they don't word things wrong if they're trying to help me. I have a problem with that too, so please no one take this note to personally. ^^

Thank you everyone who actually read this and enjoy the story

Prologue: Kidnapped

"What exactly are we doing here again?" an attractive man in a black suit asked an equally attractive woman also in a black suit as they walked up to a New York hospital. The woman rolled her eyes and looked at the man annoyed.

"We're here to get a baby for the School, obviously!"

"Yeah, I know. But why are we doing it? Don't they usually send normal people to get test subjects?"

"Yes, but this isn't a normal baby. This is the baby of a human and a Greek God. Were you sleeping when we were briefed or something?" You could tell the woman was getting really irritated with the man walking next to her because her eyebrow started to twitch.

"Greek God! What are you talking about? They don't exist!" The male said amused, then laughed at his partner.

"Well, the scientists obviously believe they exist since they are sending us to get the brat." The woman snapped before going silent since they were in the hospital by that time. The two got directions to were the newborn babies were kept, which was right down the hall, then walked to the big window showing everyone the babies.

"So, which one is the one we want?" the man asked. The woman scanned the names before stopping on one of the boys.

"That one." she said, pointing to the sleeping baby. Her partner nodded, then sneaked into the room and grabbed the baby. He walked back out and gave the boy to his partner before he woke up. "Now go tell the doctors some lie about the kid dying or going missing so we can go back to the School. I'll wait for you outside."

"Okay. Will only take me a couple of minutes." the suited man said, then walked off. The woman walked outside and only had to wait about 5 or 10 minutes for her partner to walk out.

"Turns out I didn't have to make anything up. The doctors taking care of the kid are working for the School as well. They will come up with something to tell the parents."

"Good. Now we can go back to the School." she said to her partner, then looked down at the now awake and confused looking baby boy. "Now, are you ready to go to Death Valley, Perseus Jackson?"

End Prologue

for anyone new to my stories, sometimes to help me stay in the mood to type my stories up, I will play music. If i'm not too spaced out, the music that plays at random on my media player will be typed out here. I love music, so I like to share the music I know to anyone who might like it. ^^

Songs

Sakura Addiction (Hibari Version) by Takashi Kondo (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

Starstrukk by 3oh3

To Zanarkand by Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy X)

I Can Walk On Water, I Can Fly by Basshunter

Think of Me by Sarah Brightman (Phantom of the Opera)


	2. My Son Is What!

First chapter of Wings of a Feather! Hope you like it and if any of the characters are too OOC, i'm sorry.

Disclaimer- Percy Jackson is sadly property of Rick Rhiordan, same as Maximum Ride, only James Patterson. I would say something about things that would have been different if I owned them, but I don't want to spoil anyone who isn't caught up.

Chapter One: My Son Is What?

"W-what did you just say?" asked a pretty brunette woman laying in a hospital bed to the doctor in front of her.

"Your son was having problems breathing when he was born. We did all we could, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. I'm sorry Miss Jackson, but your son is dead."

The white robed doctor left quietly as the grief stricken woman sobbed for her lost son. About 5 or 10 minutes later, the woman had forced herself to calm down enough to have only silent tears and ragged breathing. The curly haired brunette got up and walked over to a water fountain conveniently placed in her hospital room. She pushed the button to release the water, then flipped a gold coin into the spray where it disappeared in the rainbow mist she had created. Not a minute later, a female voice asked her who she wanted to contact.

"Poseidon." The formerly pregnant brunette answered. A few minutes later, the water showed the face of a handsome man with almost black brown hair and gorgeous eyes the color of the sea. The smile that was on the mans face disappeared at seeing the woman's tear stained face.

"Sally? Whats wrong? Did something happen to you or Perseus?" When "Sally" nodded and started to cry again, the man dispersed the Iris message and appeared in front of her a few minutes later. The minute he appeared in front of her, Sally hugged him and sobbed into his chest as he calmed her down. "Sally, please tell me what happened." Poseidon said gently after Sally had calmed down enough to talk again.

"It's Perseus. The doctor just told me he died!" Poseidon paled and responded shakily.

"What? What do you mean? I thought Perseus was a healthy baby boy?"

"The doctor said he was having problems breathing when he was born. It was just a small problem at first that got worse until he suffocated to death."

"Problems breathing? I was there when he was born. I was one of the first to hold him after you and the doctor. He was with us for at least 5 minutes before he was taken away to be cleaned up. If something was wrong we would have noticed then. And I don't think the doctor would have let us hold him like that if he was having problems breathing, he would have fixed it right away."

"But why would the doctor lie to me?" Sally asked confusedly.

Poseidon thought for a moment, before he remembered about something Pan was worrying about before he disappeared. Something involving doctors, scientists, and changing kidnapped children from hospitals. "Before he disappeared, Pan was telling us gods about something that a group of scientists and doctors started to do. They were a group called the Institute for Higher Living that kidnapped children from hospitals for bought them from parents who didn't want their children and experimented on them with something called recombinant DNA. This was supposed to turn these children into human/animal hybrids that were faster and stronger then humans. The reason for this, other then their sick satisfaction that they could alter someones nature, was to create a super race of humans to survive some upcoming apocalypse that the scientists believe are coming in the near future."

"So how do we know if Perseus was kidnapped or if he really died?" asked Sally.

The sea god held his lover close to him as he thought of what he could do. He didn't believe his son was dead, of course. He was too healthy to have just died so quickly. The only thing he could thing of was him being taken by someone working for the Institute. Looks like he will have to find out if his newborn son is really dead or not.

"Hades might tell us if he really died or not." Poseidon said slowly, not wanting to talk with his brother but would do it if it meant saving his son who was more then likely kidnapped by the Institute if he wasn't dead.

"But having children with mortals is forbidden to you. Wouldn't he tell Zeus to get in his good side if you told him about Perseus?" Sally asked worriedly.

"Normally, but Hades is also forbidden from having children and he has two. Zeus learned about them and blew up their house with one of his lightning bolts but they survived without him noticing. Hades knows I know and he wouldn't tell Zeus and risk me telling him about his son and daughter." The green eyed god said as he thought about how he was going to do this.

"Well, alright. But be careful." The pretty woman said and kissed her lover.

"Hey, I'm a god. He can't hurt me." Poseidon said with a smile and wink. Sally returned the smile and hugged him before stepping away, allowing him to vanish.

_1 hour later..._

A brown eyed woman sat in a New York hospital recovering from giving birth. She sat up against the head of her bed with a book open in her lap but she was to distracted to read it. The poor dear couldn't stop thinking about earlier that day, couldn't stop thinking about her beautiful baby boy with baby blue eyes that will more then likely change to a gorgeous sea green as he gets older and soft black/brown hair. And, of course, she couldn't stop thinking about the terrible words the doctor told her a little over an hour ago, that her precious baby was dead. She tried to get her mind off of it by reading a book while waiting for her lover to get back from speaking with his brother, but she kept getting distracted.

The sound of ocean waves and the smell of sea salt made Sally Jackson's head snap up and hopefully at the handsome man in front of her.

"Well, the good news is Perseus is not dead." Poseidon started. Sally closed her brown eyes as tears ran down her pale cheeks.

"Oh, thank Olympus! Now , what's the bad news? Was Perseus taken by the Institute for Higher Living?"

"Most likely, yes. But there's a problem." Poseidon said, shifting nervously to look at the wall away from Sally. The look of guilt was clearly seen on his face.

"What's wrong? Why do you look so guilty?" Poseidon sighed before responding.

The bad news is he's missing. Somehow, the Institute is shielding themselves from us. Neither Hades or I can find him."

"Okay, so what do we do?" Sally asked shakily.

"Don't worry Sally. I will find our son no matter how long it takes." The sea god promised with a determined look on his face.

"I know you will." Sally said with a sad smile and hugged her lover.

_'Perseus, please be okay.'_

_Death Valley, California (The School)_

"Boss, we're back. We brought the demigod brat." The handsome male announced. The woman with him held the baby out to a group of eager scientists.

"Hey boss! Who is the godly parent?" asked one of the scientists to a man dismissing the attractive pair.

"The godly parent is the boy's father, Poseidon.. I'm sure you've heard of him."

"The god of the sea?" asked a skeptical scientist. "Do you really expect me to believe that this child is the son of a greek god?"

"Since its recently been proven that gods exist and that sometimes they come down to earth, fall in love, and have children, yes."

The scientist nodded, still not convinced.

"Okay, so lets say I believe you. How are we going to keep this a secret from gods? Because we would have to since we kidnapped the sea gods child and are planning on doing horrible things to him."

"The things we do are not horrible. They are scientific miracles making the human race better. And don't worry about the gods. We have ways of concealing ourselves from them. Now the real question is this. Now that we have the sea gods half god/half mortal child, what recombinant DNA should we put into it."

"I have an idea." Everyone turned to the scientist holding little Percy. "How about avian?"

End Chapter One

so Percy was taken by the School and neither Poseidon or Hades can find him. Can you guess what is going to happen next?

icefox

Some More Songs

Masquerade by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Phantom of the Opera)

Self Inflicted by Katy Perry

The Fourth Drink Instinct by Cute Is What We Aim For

Concrete Angel by Martina McBride

Boys and Girls by LM.C (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

Main Theme by Toshiro Masuda (Ghost Hunt)

Carnation by Kiyoharu (Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge{The Wallflower})

If You Were Gay by Avenue Q

The Point of No Return-Chandelier Crash by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Phantom of the Opera)


	3. Demigod To Mutant Bird Freak

icefox: Woo-hoo! Chapter Two is here. Some Maximum Ride people are going to be introduced in this chapter.

Disclaimer: Maximum Ride is owned by James Patterson and Percy Jackson and the Olympians is owned by Rick Rhiordan.

Chapter Two: Demigod To Mutant Bird Freak

"Hey, I was just thinking about something." A scientist said to his colleague while prepping an infant for an experiment.

"That must have hurt." The other scientist said with a bored tone of voice while injecting something into the baby's arm, making him tear up.

"Shut up!" The first scientist yelled while his partner laughed at him.

"Okay, sorry! Now what were you thinking?"

"Well, I was just wondering how we found out that this brat is the child of a god. And how was it so precise that we even figured out who the godly parent is?" The second scientist sighed and shook his head as he carried the now crying infant to a table.

"You know how we have people in hospitals around the world that test babies for good test subjects after they are born, right?" his partner nodded, so he continued. "Well, after we found out the existence of the gods, some of our smarter scientists found out how to tell a demigod baby apart from a human one as well as who the parent is at the same time. I think it has to do with their DNA. So now, when our people test for good lab rats, they test for godly parents too."

"Oh, okay." The first scientist said while hitting his palm with his fist. "But wait! The kids father is the god of the sea. Why are we giving him avian DNA?"

Because somebody suggested it to our boss and he liked it. He must be in the mood to waste test subjects or something, because I can't see this turning out good."

"So, if you don't like it, then why didn't you say something?" For saying this, the first scientist got a 'WTF, are you crazy?' look.

"If I did that, I would have been shot! You would too if you talk back to a superior. Keep that in mind, newbie." The first scientist gulped fearfully, nodded, then helped his colleague implant the avian DNA into the infant who soon started screaming.

_Some hours later..._

"Tsh, I knew it was going to fail." said a voice outside the door. A brown haired girl and two boys, strawberry-blonde and raven haired, looked towards the door as two scientists wheeled in a cage with a small form gasping for breath laying inside.

"I know. His DNA was just too different from the avian DNA to begin with. Then they have us try and mess with the kids vocal chords. Its no wonder the kid can't breath."

"Are we really just going to leave it here?"

"Yeah, it'll die soon anyways. We'll just have an eraser come get the body to dispose of later..." as the voices faded away back down the hallway, the children moved to the front of their small cages to look at the suffocating child worriedly.

"do you think he's going to die, Fang?" the girl asked the raven haired boy.

"I think so Max." Fang responded miserably.

"Is there anything we can do for him?" asked the strawberry-blonde looking towards Fang with vacant blue eyes. The boys raven eyes looked at the dying boy in the cage and the distance between them.

I don't think so, Iggy. We're too far away to even touch him."

Max's brown eyes teared up as she looked at the poor boy suffering in front of her. Fang looked over to the 3 year old girl in the cage next to him.

"Max? Are you okay?" Max looked over at her equally young friends with teary eyes.

"No! I want to help him but I can't do anything!" Fang and Iggy looked at Max sadly and Fang opened his mouth to say something to comfort his upset friend when they heard deep gasping breathes different then the suffocating ones they heard before. All three children looked over to see a black haired baby with gorgeous silver and sea green wings breathing normally and looking at them curiously with baby blue eyes.

"He's alive!" The human/avian trio yelled with stunned looks on their faces. The baby saw the funny looks and started to laugh. Max and Fang were even more shocked to see that the winged boy laughed silently.

"You poor baby. What did those awful scientists do to you? Asked Max sadly.

"The scientists were saying something about messing with his vocal chords. They must have been trying to make it possible for him to speak with animals and damaged his vocal chords like when they tried to give Iggy raptor vision and blinded him.

"I was wondering what Max was upset about just now. So the kid can't speak?" When Max and Fang answered with a 'yes', Iggy sighed. "Talking with him is going to be pretty much impossible. He can't speak so when he is old enough to actually talk he will have to use sign language. I hate being blind now more then ever!"

"I know you're upset Ig, but try to stay calm. The baby is tearing up, though he looks more worried about you then upset about you shouting. Try to apologize and let him know you're ok." Max said, looking thoughtfully at the baby most of the conversation. Iggy "looked" at her surprised. 

"Really? Okay. Sorry for yelling, kid. I was just a little upset. I'm ok now." Everything was silent for a minute before Fang said,

"Max was right. He was worried about you. After you said you were okay, he started smiling."

This made Iggy smile happily. Soon, the three mutant bird kids were pouring out their heart and soul to their silent listener, making him laugh at everything they were happy about and cry at everything that upset them. Needless to say, the winged boy was doing a lot of crying.

_A few hours later_

Jeb walked down one of the halls of the school to fetch a failed experiment. The young scientist was silently fuming while thinking about his current situation. 'Those idiots! How dare they dispose of such important research material? I will see them all fired!' (bet you were expecting "hanged" ^^)

By now, Jeb had reached the room young Perseus was kept in. He unlocked the door with his key card and walked in on a scene he did not expect to see. He saw the three bird kids in cages pressed up to the front bars talking to a silently laughing, winged, healthy baby boy who should have suffocated to death hours ago. The birds kids noticed him right away and backed away from the front bars of their cages, making baby Perseus cry.

'Hm... interesting.' Jeb thought before grabbing the attention of a passing scientist. "Get an extra large cage in here and move the four winged children into it. The three older kids will help take care of the baby in between experiments."

"Um, yes sir. But are you sure this will be okay?" the scientist asked nervously.

"No, but if there is anything wrong with this, I will take full responsibility. Now move!"

"Yes sir!"

As the scientist ran off to do what he was told, Jeb looked at Perseus thoughtfully. 'Experimenting with this one will be fun.'

End Chapter 2

**Songs**

Lilium by Kumiko Noma (Elfen Lied)

The Islander by Nightwish

It Ends Tonight by The All-American Rejects

Ashita Moshi Kimi ga Kowaretemo by WANDS (YuGiOh! Season Zero)

Dearest by Ayumi Hamasaki (Inuyasha)

Pump It by Black Eyed Peas

The Nightside of Eden by H.I.M.

Passion by Hikaru Utada (Kingdom Hearts)

Hips Don't lie by Shakira

Ding Ding Dong by Gunther


	4. Erasers in the Strawberry Field

icefox: woo-hoo! No more finals! so... someone thinks that i'm not updating this story and i'm going to assume that means never updating, so I need to tell you guys something. I am a college student who just got done with finals and works for her grandma all day saturdays and has robotics at least every tuesday night, so its not like I have a lot of free time. Plus I have more then just this story I am working on, so please be patient. I might not update as much as you people might want me to, but I will always update. I will never abandon a story because I would fall in love with stories that get abandoned and know how it feels to know that a story you really love will never get finished. Like right now, there's a one piece story I absolutely love called Dead Wish and the author doesn't know if he/she is going to finish it because they lost the inspiration to work on it. T.T

Anyways, here is chapter 3 of Wings Of A Feather! I have 2 chapters written in my little notebook here, so look forward to the next chapter in a few minutes. Also as an apology for taking so long, other then the extra chapter, go to my profile and look at my story ideas. Some of them I have started and some I have outlined and everything but haven't started yet. Just look through them and tell me if there are any you want to read and I will type them up and post them or at least start working on them so that they can come up soon. Yes, most of them are crossovers or anime related, but I still hope you look at them just in case there might be one you like.

Disclaimer: if you don't already know that I don't own Maximum Ride and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, then you haven't really been paying much attention here, have you? XD

Chapter 3: Erasers in the Strawberry Field

_(Max POV)_

It has been 12 years since our mute flock member joined us. Since then, we have gained 3 more kids for the flock.

The first one to come was Nudge. Fondly referred to as The Nudge Channel for her motormouth, Nudge is about 11 or 12 like our mute flock member with gorgeous caramel/chocolate hair and eyes to match her flawless milk chocolate skin. The tawny winged bird kid seems to be obsessed with fashion and you would be lucky if you could get her to stop talking for more then a minute, but I guess that's one of her charms.

Gazzy and Angel came to us at the same time and are the only 2 in our flock related. Gazzy, or the Gasman for reason you don't want to experience first hand, is a blue eyed blond around 8 years old that has a talent for mimicking voices perfectly and making bombs. Both of these talents gets him in trouble many times, especially the bombs he likes making with his best friend Iggy, He's a real sweet boy despite all this, a trait he shares with his little sister Angel.

Now don't tell anyone, but Angel's my favorite. She is a really sweet girl that has golden blond curls and beautiful blue eyes that go perfectly with her name. Even her wings are pure white. She is also the youngest in the flock, being 6 years old. Maybe that's why I favor her so much. Angel was only 2 years old when we escaped from the School 4 years ago, So I've raised her like I was her mom.

Yes, we escaped from the School. It wasn't because we just decided to bust out of our cages all of a sudden and ninja our way out of the place. For some reason, a scientist named Jeb Batchelder helped us escape. After escaping, he brought us to the E shaped house we live in now and disappeared soon after. No one has said it out loud, but we all know he's dead.

Now why am I telling you all this? It's time to start the day! Breakfast sounds really good right now. Maybe the food faeries visited us last night...

_10 minutes later_

'What is this?' I ask myself as I stare at my attempt at cooking breakfast. It was burned beyond comparison and had odd purple fumes wafting from it. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to cook.

"Max?" A sleep filled voice asked from the entrance to the kitchen. I turn around to see Gazzy and Kai staring at me. One was still trying to wake up and the other was staring at my back where I hid my concoction. 'Hey, my cooking's not that bad Kai! ...Right?'

Kai, full nickname being Chimera (kai-me-rah) is our mute flockmember. We gave him that nickname because of him apparently having 3 types of DNA and chimera are greek creatures that are created from more then one type of creature. Our nickname for him goes surprisingly well with his real name. Like most of the flock, Angel has a special talent and this talent is reading peoples minds. Now, she can control it almost perfectly, but a year or so ago, she would read peoples minds on accident. One day she accidentally read Kai's mind and his earliest memory which was a pretty brunette woman naming him Perseus Jackson. Angel heard this and a handsome man with Kai's black hair and green eyes call the woman Sally before the accident stopped. We tried looking her up in California (location of the School) and Colorado (where we are now) guessing her last name was Jackson and she would be nearby, but found nothing. We would have looked harder, but Kai didn't seem to mind not knowing, so we dropped it and kept his flock name because Perseus sounded weird after calling him Kai for so long.

Anyways, lets get back to the present and away from memory lane. I think Gazzy is trying to ask me something.

"I'm sorry sweetie, what did you say?" I asked, making Gazzy roll his eyes.

"Max, you need to stop hanging out with Nudge! She's supposed to be the space cadet. Not you."

"Okay, I'm sorry. Now what?"

"I was just asking what we were having for breakfast."

"Um, a surprise." I said, kissing him on the forehead. Gazzy was about to say something in response when they heard a crash and pained moan before the flocks blind strawberry blond mutant stumbled into the kitchen.

"Who moved the table next to the stairs?" Iggy asked with an irritated tone of voice.

"Sorry Iggy. The stairs just looked so empty." I apologized.

"Next time, tell me when you move something. Remember I'm blind." Iggy said sitting on the couch.

'Then act like you are! ^^()' I thought before peering into the fridge. 'Why aren't food faeries real? Oh well, maybe we have a few cans we can open up.' I sighed at my train of thought before freezing when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck raise. I whip my head around and come face to face with Fang.

"Fang! Will you quit that?" I yell startled at the raven haired boy putting his long hair in a pony tail.

"Quit what? Breathing?" Fang asked calmly as he walked over to the table to grab an apple.

"Make some noise when you walk! You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"I'll make eggs. Don't want Max destroying our last frying pan." Iggy said walking in from the living room. Kai laughed silently while I huffed in annoyance .

"Fine! I'll go wake Nudge and Angel." I say as I stomp off to their room. After dragging the half conscious Nudge out of her bed and helped the already awake Angel button up her shirt, we walk out into the living room to wait for breakfast to be done. During breakfast, Angel said she wanted to go pick strawberries, so I suggest we all go. So after cleaning up the breakfast mess and grabbing some baskets for the strawberries, we flew to the strawberry field.

_Strawberry Field_

Angel, Gazzy, Kai and Nudge raced to find the best strawberries while Iggy, Fang, and I took our time. As Fang and Iggy wandered off to the right, I walked over to where Angel had dragged Kai and started to pick some strawberries.

"if you make cake, I can make strawberry shortcakes." Angel said to me, making Kai give her a 'WTF, ARE YOU CRAZY?' look.

"yeah, that'll be the day, when Max makes a cake. I'll make it, Angel." I heard Iggy say. I whirled around to face the blind kid and glared (a lot of good that did me).

"Oh, thank you! Okay, I'm not a fabulous cook. But I can still kick your butt, and don't you forget it!" I exclaimed, one hand on my hip and the other pointing to Iggy (Again, why exactly am I making all these gestures when he can't see them? Oh well). I blink a bit in confusion when everyone started to laugh and Iggy put his hands up in denial. Even Fang was grinning and Gazzy looked... devious. That when it clicked. "Was that you?" I asked him, making the Gasman shrug his shoulders. I was about to reprimand Gazzy on mimicking others when I heard Angel scream. I spin around to stare at her before snapping my eyes to the sky where attractive men and woman were coming out helicopters and turning into red eyed creatures resembling werewolves before hitting the ground.

Erasers were here and, unfortunately, it's not a dream.

End chapter 3

**Songs**

Jungle P by 5050 (One Piece)

Metro by The Vincent Black Shadow

No Matter What by unknown (to me) artist (4kids YuGiOh!) XD (such a nerd!)

Draw With Me (music by someone from newgrounds. video by mikeinel)

IMITATION BLACK by Kumoi Gakupo, Shion Kaito, and Kagamine Len (Vocaloid)

Trinity Cross by Nana Mizuki (Rosario+Vampire)

Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy

Setsuna no Kioku (Chome Dokuro character song) by Satomi Akesaka (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

The End Has Come by Ben Moody

The Sailor Song by Toy Box

Hyrule Field Main Theme by Koji Kondo (Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time)


	5. Where Are We?

icefox: hello my lovely readers! I'm happy. I'm registered for intermediate tai chi and waitlisted for career life planning. Now I just have to play buzzard for concert choir, writing 115, and math 65 and hope someone drops one of them at a convenient time for me. **sigh** sometimes I hate being a college student. It can be so hard to get the classes you want because there are so many other people trying to get the same classes you are.

Anyways, here is the 4th chapter for Wings of a Feather. Kai wakes up somewhere with angel and Max beats up some bullies in an Arizona town picking on a dark haired girl a few years younger then her. Anyone who's read the the angel experiment should know what I'm talking about. ^^ I got the descriptions of the boys mentioned at the end of the chapter from the maximum ride manga.

Enjoy chapter 4 and please review. I'm gunna go back to working on my other stories and watching "Highschool of the Dead" and "Togainu bo Chi" now.

Disclaimer: no own, no sue. XD

Chapter 4: Where Are We?

_(Kai POV)_

I groan as I sit up and hold my aching head. 'Where am I? What happened?'

"We were captured by Erasers." A small voice said next to me. I open my eyes and snap my head to the left to see Angel staring at me sadly through the bars of our cages. Our small dog cages we lived in at the School.

"Yes, we're at the School. Erasers were jumping down into our strawberry field from helicopters. The first one landed in front of you and knocked you out before shoving you in a black sack and retreating.

Max tried to get you back while everyone else fought off the Erasers but then I was captured. The Eraser with me was closer to her then you were but the Eraser with you was closer to Fang so Max left him to Fang while she tried to get me back. Before she could get to that Eraser Ari, who was turned into an Eraser, knocked Max out. Once they got me into a nearby van with you, they took us away to here."

'Why just us?' Kai asked, not thinking twice about how Angel knew all of this when she was shoved in a sack most of the time this happened. She can read minds, so she more then likely got the information from nearby minds.

"i don't know. It might have to do with our powers or maybe even our DNA. Who knows with them, They don't really think normally, so it's hard to say why.

'Do you think-' Kai began but stopped when he heard someone walk into the room. Both Kai and Angel looked to the door to see Erasers.

"Alright, time to go see the doctors!" One Eraser said in a teasing voice as the others put their cages on trollies. Angel and a few Erasers went right as Kai and the rest went left. After a few minutes of walking, Kai's group entered a room you would see only in your worst nightmares.

"Oh yes! Subject 4 is here! I am gunna have so much fun with this!" One scientist exclaims as him and his colleagues walk towards the terrified Kai cowering in the back of his cage.

'Max! Fang! Everyone! Where are you?' Kai thought while crying silently and shaking. The scientists reach him and drag him out, making Kai struggle and scream silently.

"Hey look, he's mute! Look's like we won't have to worry about him screaming." the first scientist comments.

"That makes everything even better. We won't have to stop because of headaches from screaming subjects that way." Another comments.

"Yes! We'll be able to get so much more done this way!" Says a third scientist. Kai just lays on the table he was strapped to and sobs silently.

Let the nightmare begin.

_Some hours later_

'Where in the world is Kai? He should have been brought back here hours ago.' Angel thought worriedly as she stared at the door. She was just about to try and look for something to pick the lock on her cage and look for Kai (who cares if she gets punished or something for it? Kai could be getting killed somewhere in the facility for all she knew!) when the door opened and an Eraser brought in a cage with what looked like a pile of silver and sea green feathers lying on the floor of the cage. Once the Eraser left, Angel frantically pressed herself to the bars of her cage and called out to Kai.

"Kai! Are you okay? What-" Angel began but stopped when she saw the horrific experiments in Kai's mind.

'If you don't mind, I would rather stop thinking about it.' Kai thought to her tiredly and smiled at her slightly from where he lay crumpled on the floor of his cage. Angel nodded and started to tell Kai about her meeting with the supposedly dead Jeb Batchelder before being taken to her maze experiments.

_A few hundred miles away_

Max, Fang, and Nudge were flying over an Arizona town on their way to California when Max saw something below. A group of dangerous looking boys were surrounding a very pissed off looking girl. Fang saw where Max was looking and tried to stop her, but then she ordered them to keep flying and she would catch up or meet up with them in a bit and shot down to help the girl.

"So, what have you got to say for yourself?" Max heard one boy say as she inched along the side of a building to get a better look at what she was dealing with.

"Is there any reason I shouldn't teach you a lesson?" Threatened another.

'Hm, so 3 boys around my age, possibly older. Might or might not have weapons, though I doubt they would have anything like a gun.' Max thought as she carefully peered around the corner.

"Ella, I told you not to tell anybody about my little situation with Ortiz! It was none of your business! I had to teach him a lesson!" A blond boy, more then likely the leader, shouted at a glaring hispanic girl holding her injured left shoulder.

"By beating him up? He looks like he got hit by a car! And he didn't do anything to you!" The girl yelled back.

'Brave girl.' Max noted with a smirk.

"Why you little-" The leader yelled as he pulled back his fist. The girl screamed when she saw the fist coming toward her, giving Max her que to play superhero and kick the blond jerk in the face. As the bully fell to the ground with a thud, Max gracefully landed on her feet and turned to the surprised black haired girl a few years younger then her.

"Run! Get out of here!" Max said urgently. The girl nodded then ran, ignoring the bully yelling for her to stop. When that didn't work, the bully, a dark skinned beanie wearing boy with as mean face, turned to the brunette standing in his way.

"Who the hell are you?" The gangster looking boy demanded.

"3 guys against 1 girl. That seems even." Max said calmly with a small glare.

"Shut up! You better get out of here if you know whats good for you!" Max just rolled her eyes in boredom.

"Grab that chick." A way to calm voice said from the direction the other 2 boys were at. Max flicked her eyes toward the voice to see the leader holding a gun with a demented look on his face sitting next to his equally crazy looking brunette friend. "You'll regret butting into other peoples business."

"Bet I won't." Max said with a smirk as she watched the blond spit blood out of his mouth. The smirk was replaced with shock a minute later when a bullet flies by her face, mere inches away from shooting her ear off or going through her eye and into her brain.

"This ain't a toy, you idiot!" The ringleader shouted, the barrel of the pistol smoking.

Max 'tsk'ed and spun around, running into the forest. She barely registered the shout of 'get her' as she sprinted through the trees.

'That stupid gun!' She thought as she weaved through the tall pines. Not a minute later she came to a cliff, making her skid to a stop. ' I can't fly in front of them!' Realizing there was no where to go, she hid behind a tree just in time for the trio to miss her.

'Okay, I'll just hide here until they leave then catch up to Fang and Nudge.' Max was thinking when her foot slid on the cliff slop. The rustling sound made the boy with the gun whip around.

'Damn!' was Max's last thought before getting shot and falling backwards off the cliff.

Songs

Unwell by Matchbox 20

Dreamship by Ikuta Aiko (One Piece)

Shiro no Jumon by doa (Saiyuki Reload Gunlock)

Brightdown by Nami Tamaki ()

Love is War by Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid)

You Are My Love (English) by Yuki Kajura (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle)

Big Ass Rock from The Full Monty Broadway

Koi no Buchige Tengoku Koi no Maiahi-Chiwawa-Banzai by Maeken

Sakura Rock by Cherryblossom (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

Kaze no Machi he by FictionJunction KEIKO (Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle)

Change the World by ….. I dunno (Inu Yasha)

We Did It! Party! by someone (the name is in kanji) (One Piece)

Mother Sea by same person as above song (One Piece)

Houki Boshi by Younha (Bleach)

I Can't Decide by Scissor Sisters

No One by Aly and AJ

Bittersweet by Within Temptation


	6. Problems With the School

icefox: hello everyone. Sorry it took me so long to update. I've been having writer's block problems with this story lately. Not on what to write, just how to write it.

Usually I like to respond to reviews via fanfiction email and stuff, but I got a few reviews from someone who's not an author here or just didn't feel like signing in, so here's my response to that person.

The story is progressing to quickly for your tastes. I'm sorry. When I started the story, really I wanted to start from the beginning of the Angel Experiment, but that would have been confusing, so I wrote enough in the prologue and the first two chapters for Percy to be born and get introduced to Max, Fang, and Iggy and get his avian recombinant DNA. From the beginning of writing the story, I didn't want to spend to much time on the past so I just wrote enough to get everyone introduced and get the story started. Plus, I thought people would get bored if the story was too slow.

"I have an idea" sounds a little lame. Again, i'm sorry you don't like it. I thought it might be better if we could sort of relate to the scientist at least by them speaking normally and some of them probably would sound kind of lame. I mean, its the School were talking about. They have to be pretty lame if nothing else to experiment on kids.

Their hair is BLACK. BLACK I TELL YOU! When I wrote their descriptions, I couldn't remember if their hair was completely black or if it was a really dark brown and in the movie, both Percy and Poseidon had medium brown hair so I went in the middle and said it was dark almost black hair. I also didn't have the book on me to look it up but I did just now and found where it said their hair colors (second to last chapter Percy said Poseidons hair was black just like his) so I will change it the next time the hair is mentioned if it bothers you so much.

This is confusing. For the third time, i'm sorry. Tell me how it is confusing and I will do my best to clear things up for you.

New name? Yes, Percy has a new nickname. None of the flock know their real name and have just named themselves (I mean, do you see a normal person naming their kid Fang, Iggy, Nudge, or the Gasman?) so it stands to reason that Percy would get a nickname as well even if he does find out his real name. Nudge finds out her name is Monique and Iggy finds out his is James Griffiths but they stick with their flock names cause they're familiar and more preferred.

No demigod abilities? Nothing? If you remember in the books (and the movie) Percy doesn't start to noticeably get his demigod abilities until the beginning of the first book when he is 12 years old and starts being attacked by monsters. He's been attacked by Erasers but monsters? Not so much because the avian DNA put into him combined with his human DNA and all the dirt and stuff on him from living like the flock does helps hide the scent of his godly DNA and blood. Plus, Jeb knew he was a demigod when he helped the flock "escape" from the School, so he probably had something done to the house to keep monsters away and maybe even suppress his demigod powers until he was able to use them without getting himself or anyone around him hurt or killed. His powers will start to show up soon, so no need to worry. Have I answered all of your questions except for whatever you are confused about? Or was the new name and no demigod powers what you were confused about? If everything was answered you don't have to answer, but it would be nice if you left a review if you are still reading the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Maximum Ride. The former is owned by Rick Rhiordan and the latter is owned by James Patterson.

Chapter 5: Problems With the School and a Few Surprises

(Max POV)

'Great. Now not only am I hurt and starving, I have to get drenched in freezing rain! This sucks! I wonder how long I can stand this?' I think as I slowly walk through the forest holding my left shoulder and letting my left wing drag. I hiss in pain as I hide my wings when I reach the edge of the forest. 'I need to search for shelter from the rain. Fang must be furious by now.'

"Come on, Magnolia." After hearing nothing but rain and my own footsteps splashing through mud and puddles the sudden voice makes me shudder and snap my head to the right. Standing in the yard of a nice house is a young girl holding an umbrella and a dog leash.

'She's the girls from before! They called her Ella, right?' I don't really want to bother her and it's probably not safe for me to trust her or go in her house, but I don't really have much of a choice, "Um... Ella?"

"Who?" she asks after turning around. She must not recognize me though I don't blame her. It's pretty dark and she doesn't have raptor vision like I do.

"It's me... from before..." I clarified.

"Oh! Thank you for helping me earlier." she says and her eyes widen when I fully step into the light cast by her porch. "Oh my god! Is that blood?"

"One of them managed to clip me with a shot." I say hesitantly, hoping she doesn't try and make me go to the hospital.

"Why didn't you go to the hospital? Come on! We have to get you inside quick!" Ella panics as she runs to her door and flings it open. "Mom! Mom! This girl needs help!"

I hesitate at the door for a moment but take a few steps into the house when Ella's mom walks into the living room. First the woman has me sit down on the couch as she introduces herself. I introduce myself in return and stay quiet while she looks at my wound through the hole in my jacket and two shirts.

"Why didn't you go to the hospital?... I take it you don't want me to call your parents?" Valencia Martinez, Ella's mom, asks me without taking her eyes away from my shoulder.

"..." What can I tell her? That I don't have parents because I was born in a test tube and modified with recombinant avian DNA and live alone with 5 other bird kids? Yeah, that'll go down real well.

"... or the police either, right?" I continue to stay silent but nod my head in affirmation. "All right." I look up at her startled to see a small smile on her face. "I'm a vet, so let me take a better look at your wound. Let's go to the bathroom. Ella, would you get my first aid kit and some juice for Max?"

Ella goes to get what her mom asked her to get while the vet led me to the bathroom. When we get there, Dr. Martinez has me sit on the edge of the tub and take my jacket and t-shirt off so she could get a better look at the wound. I do as she says and start to fidget when she examines the wound. She seems to be fine at first, only seeing the wound in my shoulder, but then she pauses and looks behind me and I know by her widening eyes that she sees my wings.

"Max... what is this?" The vet asks, voice almost a whisper.

"Um... it's a... wing. It's, um... … my, um, wing." I stutter while fidgeting, my heart attempting to beat out of my chest. "... it... … got hurt too."

I sit there and fidget while Ella, who just came in with the first aid kit and juice, and Dr. Martinez digest that information, trying to decide whether I should run or not when Ella's mom breaks the uncomfortable silence.

"Yeah, these are your wings, alright." The black haired woman says then pets my head. I look up at her with, unbelievably, a blush and teary eyes. "Don't worry, Max... I think the shot only nicked the bone a bit. I'll take care of it, so relax." I smile hesitantly and do as she told me.

The next morning

(Still Max POV)

I wake up, startled and gasping, from a dream I can't remember to find a strange Hispanic girl inches away from my face.

"You're awake, Max. did you have a bad dream?" The girl, Ella, asked.

I shutter in surprise and bolt into a sitting position then clutch my shoulder over the bullet wound that decided to start throbbing at my sudden movement.

"You startled me. Mom said you shouldn't move too much. Are you okay?" Ella said in response to my sudden movement with her hands held in front of her and a sweatdrop running down the side of her face. When I nodded that I was alright, the brown eyed girl continued with what she came to say. "Come on, let's have some breakfast."

I walk downstairs with Ella and walk into the kitchen to be greeted with the heavenly smell of a home cooked breakfast. Ella inhales her breakfast then runs out of the room, announcing she was going to school.

"Here, help yourself." Dr. Martinez says as she sets a plate full of wonderful smelling food in front of me. "And don't hesitate if you want to talk about... anything."

"... Th-thanks. It looks really good." Geez, am I still stuttering like a fool and making my face resemble a tomato? Yup. Dr. Martinez just smiles.

"Do you have a last name?"

"Yeah. I gave it to myself. My last name is Ride. Like Sally Ride the astronaut. Maximum Ride."

"That's a good name." She says, then pauses. "...are there others like you? Do you need help?"

"..." I stay quiet and pick at my food. The vet seems to notice my discomfort and changes the subject.

"Erm... Max... can you actually fly with your wings?"

"Well, yeah." I say while nodding. "My bones are... thin."

"Really? You can really fly?"

"My bones are thin and light, I have extra muscles, my lungs are bigger... … and my hearts more efficient. But I need to eat a lot. It's hard."

"Ah, I see... Max... can I ask... how... this happened?"

I stay silent for a moment and Dr. Martinez gets a worried look on her face. I hear her mumble 'Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up...' when I close my eyes. I open them again and tell her the truth.

"I don't remember."

I stare down at my breakfast and continue eating while the vet stares out of the kitchen window. I finish eating and put my fork down.

"Um... thanks for the meal. I... should leave now."

"Already?" Dr. Martinez asks, startled.

"Yeah, some friends are waiting for me. It's really important."

"How will you get to them? Can I give you a ride?" she asks with a smile.

"No... I need to, um, fly there. But I don't think I can yet." I say, making the vet frown and cross her arms.

"It would be dangerous for you to strain your injury before its healed. As of now, I can't tell you the full extent of it. But I could give you a better idea if we had an x-ray." She says, startling me.

"Do you have x-ray vision?" I ask. Her eyes go wide in surprise then she starts to laugh.

"No, not all of us have superhuman powers, you know. But some of us have access to x-ray machines."

_Dr. Martinez's Veterinary Hospital_

(Still Still Max POV)

"Hi, guys." Dr. Martinez greets when we walk into the animal hospital.

"Hi, Valencia." The two vets in the room greet.

"This is a friend of Ella's. She's doing a report on being a vet, so I'm giving her a quick tour."

"Sure thing."

While, the vet is talking to her colleagues, my eyes flicker to the medicines, the white lab coats, and the medical supplies. Seeing these things coupled with the antiseptic smell was making me remember all of the horrible experiments at the school and it was getting me on the verge of having a panic attack.

"Max. What wrong?" Dr. Martinez asks after pulling me into the x-ray room, distracting me enough to answer her.

"It's the white lab coats, the antiseptic smell, the medicines and tools. They remind me of the scientists and labs. Can we go now?"

"I promise you, you're safe here." The vet assures. "Can you just stay long enough to get an x-ray? We'll leave right after that."

After a bit of hesitation, I agree to the x-ray. It didn't take long to get the x-ray done and even less to get the x-ray developed. Once it was set up, Dr. Martinez gets to work studying the x-ray.

"Look, this bone is fine. It's all muscle damage. Can you see the torn tissue here and here? And your wing bones... all seem fine, which is good news. Unfortunately, muscle damage usually takes longer to heal than bones do. Though I must say, the rate of your regeneration seems strangely fast. And … huh? What's this thing?" Both of us look curiously at a little white rectangle on the x-ray on my upper right arm. "That's not jewelry, is it? Is it the zipper of the windbreaker?"

"No – I took it off." I answer.

"It's a... it looks like a... it's a microchip. We put something similar on animals to identify them in case they got lost. Yours looks like a... … like the ones we use on really expensive pets. Show dogs and such. They have a tracer in them in case they get stolen. They can be tracked, wherever they go. I'm not saying that's what it is... That's just what it looks like." Dr. Martinez explains, adding the last part when I start to look panicked.

"Take it out! Please take it out right now!" I ask, almost demand, but Dr. Martinez just shakes her head.

"I'm sorry Max. I don't think this can be surgically removed." The vet goes on to explain that my muscles and veins are in the way of removing the chip, but I honestly wasn't paying much attention. The only thing I can think for the moment is that the School is playing with us. All this time, they've known exactly where we are and have done nothing until just recently. Why did they wait 4 years to come get us? And why take only Angel and Kai? I'm pulled out of my thoughts when Dr. Martinez and I hear voices out in the hall. The vet has me hide in a closet while she drives the people away. Once the School agents leave, she convinces me to rest at her house at least until Ella gets home from school. Later, when Ella comes home, I get ready to leave.

"What? You're leaving already? But you just got here!" Ella panics as her mom gets an old bag and fills it with fresh baked cookies, some more homemade food, and spare money.

"I know, but people are depending on me."

"Will you come back to visit?" the girl pleads.

"Probably not. And I really can't accept this." I first answer Ella then protest as Dr. Martinez pushes the full backpack towards me.

"Please just take it. It's only an old backpack filled with leftovers and spare money. You've come to be like a daughter to me in the short time you were here and I'll worry otherwise." Dr. Martinez pleads but Ella corrects her.

"Well, we'll worry anyways, but you having food and money helps."

Since it would ease their worry, I accept the bag and sling it across my shoulders. I check to make sure I have everything and say goodbye when Ella and Dr. Martinez show me the way out.

Once I am in the air, it doesn't take long to find the cave Fang and Nudge are at. I don't expect to find Iggy and Gazzy there as well but isn't surprised at what happened when I remember the tracer in my arm. We exchange stories while eating the food Dr. Martinez prepared for me and fall asleep.

In the morning, we finish up the food and say goodbye to the hawks. Unfortunately, because of the way our bodies are made, it doesn't take too long for us to get hungry again. Since we aren't too far from the School and I have some money, I think a quick stop at McDonald's would be a good idea. (AN: Any of you read the maximum ride manga? If you do, look at the restaurant's sign very carefully. It looks suspiciously like taco bell, but they get burgers and fries. Anyone else think that was funny? No? Okay, I'll shut up now) It takes only minutes to get our food and sit down. We are able to eat most of our meal in peace, but once it was almost gone, we notice suspicious people dressed in suits. One of them has a familiar scar over one eye. We attempt to escape, but only Gazzy and Iggy managed to escape. Ari and the Erasers knock Nudge, Fang, and I out and when I come to, I am in a dark room staring at the sad familiar faces of Angel and Kai through the bars of my old dog cage.

(Normal POV)

"Angel. Kai." Max says, relief evident in her voice. Angel greets her the same way and Kai smiles.

"Max, there's something I need to tell you." Angel starts. Max nods.

"Of course Sweetie. You can tell me anything. What is it?"

"Well, I-" Angel starts but stops when the door opens.

"Maximum Ride. Oh, I've missed you so much." A familiar scientist says. Only one thing went through the minds of Max, Fang, and Nudge.

'Jeb Batchelder?'

Max goes away with Jeb for a while but comes back soon after. Max doesn't tell them what happened and no one asks her to. With all the cameras set up in the room, everything they say and do will be heard and whatever happened with Jeb, the School wanted it kept secret.

Not long after Max comes back from her visit with Jeb a few scientists roll in a cage with a dying reptilian boy in it. He has short light colored hair with one sad eye that keeps tearing up while the other is swollen shut. He has 4 arms, his original hands are webbed and only has 3 fingers and one thumb and his extra pair lays motionless at his sides. Covering his entire body are scales and warts and atop his shoulder blades are a pair of small skeletal wings, each about a foot long with hardly any feathers. It is like they tried to turn the boy into some sort of amphibian/reptilian/avian hybrid but failed miserably. The boy doesn't talk to them, which isn't surprising. The poor thing can't even breathe properly. All it can do is wheeze. The flock is really sad to see this happen, but are able to ignore it for the most part by turning their backs on the suffering boy. All except Kai.

Kai, in his cage right in front of the dying boy, can't tear his eyes away from the sight. Like the others, Kai hates seeing the boy suffer, knowing there is nothing he could do, but this isn't the only thing bothering him. Kai himself should have been like this, should have suffered the same fate. This thought brings tears to the boys eyes.

Fang, noticing the tears thanks to his raptor vision and the fact that Kai's cage was right next to his, reached his arms through the bars of his cage. Grasping the bars of Kai's cage, Fang pulled the trollied cage right up against his. Once that was done, he hugs the crying boy as best as he could. Seeking comfort, Kai wraps his arms around Fangs neck and pushes his head through the bars of both cages so he could bury his face in Fang's chest and sob quietly into his shirt.

The minutes go by with nothing to do but listen to the boys labored breaths and slithering sounds he makes when he moves. Around 5 minutes after he was brought in, the sounds coming from the boy cease. Kai cries even harder for his death, causing Fang to react by tightening his awkward hug. Max opens her mouth to say something to comfort Kai when the bird kids hear a door open.

"Well I'm not paralyzed but I seem to be struck by you. I wanna make you move because you're standing still!" A feminine voice sings.

"Ha-ha! Your voice is awful!" A deeper, more masculine voice laughs.

"What's this?" A slightly higher male voice asks as a figure moves towards the dead mutant. "Looks like it's dead. Ah well. Not our business."

The light dims enough for the flock to finally see the group. There were 3 scientists, one female and two males. The female was kind of short with dark hair pulled up in a slightly messy bun and wearing glasses. One of the males had slightly long light colored hair, glasses, and a clipboard and the other had short hair a few shades lighter then the woman's and pushing a trolly. All of them wore white lab coats. Accompanying the scientists were Ari and another light haired Eraser both in their werewolf like form.

"Let's get to work!" The bubbly female exclaims with a smile.

"Hey Max. Miss me?" Ari teasingly asks with a smile.

"Ari." Max 'greets'.

"Is the Director quite sure about this? It seems a shame – There's so much more we can learn from them." The light haired male inquires as Ari roughly picks up Angel's cage and throws it on the trolly, doing the same to Kai right after Fang yanks his arms into his own cage and shoves Kai's arms and head out.

"Angel! Kai!" Max shouts.

"Feel like some exercise? I can take you for a walk if you beg. Ke-ke-ke." Ari taunts with a strange laugh.

"Your the one whose their dog!" Max says with a smirk. "Why don't you get your leash and beg for a walk yourself?"

"SHUT UP!" Ari yells, kicking Max's cage and flipping it onto it's back.

"ARI! Watch it." The female scientist warns, her personality doing a complete 180. Ari glares back and goes to get Nudges cage while the other Eraser takes care of Max and Fang. Once all of the cages are stacked on the trolly, the group wheels the flock into a sort of yard outside. Looking to the left you can see a small fenced in area full of hungry werewolf like Erasers.

"Wanna race? Wanna play food fight? You're the food, piggy." Ari teases and grabs Max's face, who retaliates by biting the hand on her face. Ari roars in pain, picks the cage up, slams it back on top of Fang's cage, then tries to attack Max. The bars of the cage get in the way of Ari doing any real harm, so he roars again in anger and throws Max's cage into Nudge's. This causes the cages to scatter.

"Ouch!" Nudge complains as she pulls herself off of her cage's bars and notices that Max's cage has been thrown into her cage. The russet winged girl pushes Max's cage upright, leaving a hole big enough to escape.

"What the-" the unnamed Eraser starts.

"You're one stupid dog, for sure!" Nudge taunts once she's safely in the air. She then dives towards the female scientist and steals her keys, making the woman scream.

"Fang!" Nudge yells as she throws Fang, the nearest bird kid, the keys. The raven haired boy sticks his arm out of the cage to catch the keys then lets himself out.

"Thanks." Fang says with his Mona Lisa smile and runs towards Angel and Kai's cages. Ari runs after him and tries to grab Fang's glossy black wings but is stopped by a face full of hawks that just arrived with Iggy and Gazzy to save the day. While Ari is distracted with the hawks, Fang frees Angel and Kai, Neither the blond or the mute were in any condition to fly, so Fang took Angel to Nudge and Kai to Iggy before flying back to the ground.

"What a show." Max comments as Fang unlocks her cage door.

"You're so slow." Fang tsks and hold out his hand to help Max out.

"No, just at ease." Max responds with a smirk and accepts the help. The pair join up with their group and begin to escape with the hawks when they hear someone shouting to them.

"Maximum!" Jeb yells. "Max! Please! You were safe here! This was only a test! You have to trust me – I'm the only one you can trust! Please! Come back! Max!"

Max looks back briefly and looks forward again, squeezing her eyes shut and tightening her grip on Fang's hand when she remembers Jeb before he went missing. Fang glances to his right and, seeing Max's troubled expression, squeezes her hand back in a reassuring manner. Max opens her eyes again and responds, but is so quiet only Fang hears her.

"I don't think so."

(Max POV)

After escaping from the School, we retreat to our cave next door to the hawks. After everyone falls asleep, I have a talk with Fang. We agree that we can't go back to our E-shaped home in Colorado because Jeb knows where it is, so we decide to go east. We go to sleep and in the morning, say goodbye to the hawks. We go to Ihop for breakfast, then start our journey east. The journey starts off quiet enough, but it doesn't take long for the Nudge Channel to come on.

"Nudge, you-" I say to try and stop her babbling when I am interrupted by excruciating pain exploding in my head. A hear a pain filled scream, later realizing that scream was me, and feel the increased air pressure as I begin to fall out of the sky. I next hear everyone shout my name and feel myself fall into someones strong arms before blacking out.

(Normal POV)

The flock of mutant bird kids are flying over fluffy looking white clouds above a forest covered mountain when their leader screams in pain and clutches her head before plummeting towards the ground. Everyone screams her name in worry and her right wing man rockets towards her and catches her before she becomes a pancake.

"Max?" Fang asks in a worried voice. Max just clutches her head in pain for a minute before passing out. "We should find a place to land."

Everyone looks at the passed out Max in the visibly worried Fang's arms and open their mouthes to agree when they hear an inhuman shriek. They turn just in time to see Kai tackled out of the sky and into a clearing in the forest by a flying creature with glowing eyes and a mouth full of fangs.

**Songs**

Paralyzed by Finger Eleven (song the female scientist was singing)

Ninja of the Night by... I honestly don't know, but it's not by me

Avatar Season 3 by, I don't know. I couldn't find the name of the artist (Avatar the Last Airbender)

Caramelldansen (Speedycake Version) by Caramell (woo-hoo! Swedish music! XD)

Sadness and Sorrow by Toshiro Masuda (Naruto)

Big Girls Don't Cry by Fergie

Desert Rose (With Cheb Mami) by Sting

Summer Nights by Rascal Flatts

Yura Yura by Hearts Grow (Naruto)

Agni Kai by same people who did Avatar Season 3 (Avatar the Last Airbender)

Frozen by Within Temptation

The Great Pirate of Gold by whoever did the One Piece Background Music (One Piece)

DVNO by Justice

Oceanspirit (Avatar the Last Airbender)

It Ain't Like That by Alice in Chains

Life is Like a Boat by Rie Fu (Bleach)

Tank (Kung Fu Mix) by Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop)

O, Spirit by Sayo Fukunaga (Highschool of the Dead)

End Theme by Toshiro Masuda (Ghost Hunt)

Wake Up by Three Days Grace

Our Farewell by Within Temptation


	7. Arrival At Camp HalfBlood

icefox: hello everyone. Sorry it's taken this long to update. I was busy with school, then I was busy with holiday stuff, then open office was being stupid. Enjoy. Sorry if there are any mistakes. Finishing this up and posting at four in the morning. I really need to get to sleep... *yawns*

Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and the Olympians is owned by Rick Riordan and Maximum Ride is owned by James Patterson.

Chapter 6: Arrival At Camp Half-Blood

"Kai!" The flock screams as their mute flock member crashes to the ground.

"What is that thing?" Nudge cries as she points to the ugly creature that had just attacked Kai.

"It's rude to stare little girl!" The creature rasps in a low female voice.

"Well, pardon me for being rude, but isn't it also rude to tackle mutant bird kids out of the sky when they were just minding their own business?" Nudge asks. The creature hisses at her, making her fly just a little further away.

"Never mind that! Where's the lightning bolt?"

"The... lightning bolt?" Iggy asks.

"Yes! The lightning bolt! The one that brat stole!" The creature shrieks, pointing it's talons towards the remarkably intact Kai coming out of a strangely wet crater in the forest clearing.

"Lady, the only thing we steal is food. You've got the wrong guy." Fang says after he flies up from setting Max down next to Kai, but the creature ignores him.

"Percy Jackson! Give me the bolt!" It screeches as it rushes towards Kai who was sitting on the ground holding Max.

"Percy! Catch!" Kai remembers his name is Perseus Jackson just in time to turn and catch a bronze pen thrown by the scrawny brunette boy that just spoke. Kai gives him a 'what am I suppose to do with this?' look. "Uncap it! Hurry!" The boy shouts as he watches the creature come closer, hardly slowing down by the flock attacking it.

'Might as well. Don't have anything to lose." Kai thinks as he uncaps the pen and thrusts it forward. The pen turns into a bronze sword just in time for the creature to impale itself. It shrieks in surprise and fury before exploding into yellow dust.

The flock barely lands before Kai is bombarded with questions he couldn't answer and exclamations about what just happened. Before the mute could say anything, however, his wrist is grabbed by the brunette that threw the pen who started to drag him away.

"C'mon Percs! We need to get out of here before more come!" The brunette is saying, but Fang isn't having any of that.

The raven winged boy put his long legs to good use by walking in front of the stranger and put a hand on his chest to stop him.

"Excuse me, but who do you think you are? Coming here, calling Kai 'Percy' and 'Percs' like you know him, and trying to drag him away? And what do you mean 'before more come'? Are there more of those creatures coming?" Fang says, closer to demanding than asking. The stranger makes an odd sort of bleating noise out of distress.

"I'll tell you everything you want to know, but can we do it while walking? We need to get someplace safe."

Fang stares at the brunette suspiciously for a minute before turning to Iggy.

"Iggy, could you pick Max up? She's laying right in front of you."

"Are we following him?" The strawberry blond asks as he picks up his unconscious leader.

"If he's not lying about those creatures coming, we have no choice. He seems to know about them."

"Fang, do you think Max will be okay with this?" Gazzy asks, looking at the grimacing girl in Iggy's arms worriedly.

"I don't think she'll be happy with it, but if she was conscious, I'm sure she would have done the same." Fang answers while staring at Max as well, worried about the obvious look of pain on her face even while unconscious.

"What's wrong with her?" The stranger asks after he shows Kai how to turn the sword back into a pen and the group starts walking.

"We don't know. She just screamed in pain all of a sudden and fell unconscious a few minutes later. I think it had something to do with her head because she was holding it when she started to scream." Fang answers. "Now do some explaining. First with your name and how you know Kai."

"My name is Grover Underwood, and I know Percy -I mean Kai- because I'm his Protector." The brunette starts.

"Wait a minute. Protector?" Gazzy asks, thinking that if that meant what it sounds like, Grover isn't doing a very good job.

"Yeah. A Protector is a satyr from Camp Half-Blood charged with protecting a demigod until they get to Camp. Neither of his parents believed that he was dead the day he was born, so they talked with Chiron, the activities director, and had him assign Percy -Kai- a Protector in case he was found one day. Mr. D, the Camp director, found Perc -Kai- somehow a few days ago and sent me to find him and bring him to safety."

When Grover mentions that he's a satyr, the flock looks down and notices for the first time that Grover has goat hooves instead of feet.

'_How did we not notice that?_' The group wonders to themselves.

"Camp Half-Blood?" Nudge asks after shaking herself out of her daze.

"Yeah, it's a camp for demigods. People who are half human and half god."

"So, you're saying Kai is half god." Iggy says, his tone of voice making it obvious he doesn't believe his mute friend was half god of all things.

"Yes. A Greek god, to be specific. Probably a god that deals with water because of all that water that saved him from his fall and the fact that he's completely dry when he should be drenched. Chiron, at least, knows who his godly parent is, but never told me, so we'll have to wait 'till we get to the camp for that."

"Can you tell us the name of Kai's mother and where he was born?" Angel asks, reading the question from Kai's mind. Kai smiles at her in gratitude, which she returns with a sweet smile of her own.

"I sure can! His mother's name is Sally Jackson. She's a wonderful, kind woman. You'll love her. As for where he was born, it was in New York."

"New York. That's why we never found her! We were looking on the wrong side of the country!" Gazzy exclaims.

"So, where is this 'Camp Half-Blood'?" Fang demands.

"Right off of Long Island."

"So... New York?" Iggy guesses after trying to remember where Long Island is.

"And you want us to _walk _there?" Gazzy asks incredulously.

"Nope. We're going to hail a taxi." Grover answers. The group of bird kids stare at the curly haired newcomer in disbelief. He wants a taxi to drive eight people, seven of them filthy kids with wings, from California to New York?

"Excuse me?" Fang finally asks when they stop by a deserted road.

"We're going to hail a taxi." Grover repeats, pulling a gold coin out of his pocket.

"What's that?" Nudge asks.

"A drachma."

"A what?"

"A drachma. A Greek coin."

"What are you going to do with it?" Gazzy questions. Grover smiles uneasily.

"You'll see."

Here, Grover says something in a foreign language no one recognizes and throws the drachma into the road where it sinks into the concrete. Angel is wondering with everyone else what is suppose to happen when she hears something curious in Kai's mind.

'Stop, Chariot of Damnation?'

"Kai? What do you mean by 'Chariot of Damnation'?" The flock is looking at Kai curiously over Angel's question when the ground where the drachma disappeared darkens and bubbles into a red liquid like blood in a rectangular shape. From this, a taxi that looks like it's made out of smoke rises out of the ooze. On the side of the taxi, there is a sign that says 'Gray Sisters'.

The driver's window rolls down and an old lady with grizzly gray hair covering her eyes pops her head out.

"Passage? Passage?"

"Eight to Camp Half-Blood." Grover answers.

"I thought so. Alright. Get in."

With that, Grover opens the passenger door and looks at the flock expectantly. In return, they look at him like he's insane.

"What?" Grover asks, as if it's normal to try to fit eight people into a space that is only suppose to fit three at most.

"You want eight people to fit in a space that only has room for three." Fang points out.

"The taxi is made out of smoke. It'll lengthen to fit everyone." Grover answers. The flock look at each other, than reluctantly file into the car. Grover is right. When everyone get's in, the taxi lengthens itself to seat a bigger group, giving everyone their own seat with Max stretched out on Fang, Iggy, and Kai's laps.

The Gray Sisters taxi seems like a normal taxi at first if you ignore the fact that it is made out of smoke. There is three old ladies sitting in front, the other two identical to the driver. The flock is wondering why there is a need for three people in the front when the driver floors the accelerator.

"Are you insane?" Fang shouts at Grover, arms wrapped protectively around Max and legs pressing up against the seat in front of him to keep him in place.

"Gray Sisters taxi service is the fastest there is. We're lucky to get a ride from them. Usually they only operate in New York and surrounding areas. Chiron convinced them to give us a ride from California to Camp Half-Blood just this once." Grover answers, buckled up with the huge chain they use for seat belts and holding the armrest like his life depends on it.

"Lucky? Can they even see where they're going?" Nudge cries while holding her own armrest.

"No!" shouts the driver.

"No!" says the one in the middle.

"Of course!" replies the one in the shotgun seat.

"They can't see?" Gazzy exclaims.

"They have an eye." Grover tells him.

"Each?" Nudge asks.

"No. Total. They share it."

"How can you share an eye?" Iggy shouts.

"Easy." the driver shouts. "You just pop it out-" Here the driver hits the woman in shotgun on the back of her head and catches the white 'ball' that appears. "-And put it in your eye socket." Now she demonstrates by pushing the eye into the area where her eyes should be. "Ack! Pole!"

The flock screams and clutches anything near them as the driver swerves to avoid the pole she almost ran into.

"Give me back the eye!" The one in shotgun shrieks.

"No! I need to see!" The driver shrieks back.

"Are we almost there?" Angel cries.

"Almost!" The driver rasps while giving Angel a crazy smile in the rear view mirror and drives even faster if that were possible.

Ten painful minutes of smashing against seats and doors later, the driver hits the brakes and announces that they are at Camp Half-Blood. The group of eight can't get out fast enough, flinging the doors open and scrambling out of the doors. While Grover pays the Gray Sisters the drachma they're owed, the flock looks around.

"So, this is Camp Half-Blood?" Fang says as he stares at the Greek entrance, the still unconscious Max back in his arms.

"Yes it is." Grover says as he walks past them and towards the entrance. "C'mon. Since your DNA is different than normal humans, you should be able to pass through."

"So, if we were normal humans instead of avian/human hybrids, we wouldn't be able to pass through?" Fang asks, easily entering the camp with everyone else.

"There's a barrier around the camp to keep humans and monsters out." Grover clarifies.

"The one time I'm glad to be a mutant bird freak." Iggy mutters to Fang, who responds with his Mona Lisa smile.

Grover leads the flock through Greek styled cabins and training fields full of kids wearing armor and bright orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirts to a huge farmhouse.

"Mr. D. Chiron. I got Percy." Grover says as he walks up the steps of the porch with the flock to stand next to a table where two men were playing pinochle. One man looks like a drunk, middle aged cherub while the other was a kind looking brunette in a wheelchair.

The man that looks like a cherub huffs in annoyance. "Well, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now don't expect me to be glad to see you."

This causes the flock to tilt their heads to the right in unison. Grover sweat drops and smiles awkwardly.

"That's the Camp Director, Mr. D. The one next to him is the Activities Director Chiron."

Chiron smiles kindly at Kai.

"Young Percy Jackson. How are you?" the man asks. Kai looks up at the sky like he's thinking and shrugs his shoulders. Mr. D. snorts.

"How can you not know how you feel?" The angry looking man remarks snidely. This made the flock angry.

"We just got attacked by an ugly, screeching, flying thing who accused Kai of stealing a lightning bolt of all things and tossed around in a speeding taxi made out of smoke driven by three crazy old ladies who can't even see right after losing our home and escaping from the insane scientists that took us from our parents to turn us into mutant bird freaks, so forgive us if we don't know how to feel!" Iggy yells at Mr. D angrily.

"Yeah! We've been through a lot the past few days!" Gazzy agrees.

"It's not all that surprising that we don't know how we feel with all that's happened to us." Fang supports, talking calmly instead of yelling.

"Anyways," Chiron continues with a sigh. "I know that there is a lot of explaining to do, but I also know that you probably want to meet your parents." Chiron smiles at Kai's hopeful look. "Now, because of what he is, you can't meet your father yet, but we can set up a meeting with your mother. Would you like that?" Here, Chiron smiles even bigger when Kai smiles and nods his head rapidly. "Alright. I will go set that up now."

With that, Chiron wheels away to set up the meeting. Mr. D stares at the flock as a whole before shifting his gaze to Max and sighs.

"Take them to the infirmary." Mr. D says to Grover. "Make sure everyone knows that girl is not a demigod. Wouldn't want anyone giving her ambrosia or nectar. Once the meeting with Peter Johnston's-"

"Percy Jackson." Grover interrupts.

"-mother is set up, someone will be sent to the infirmary to let you know. Now go!" Mr. D says gruffly, drinking some sort of alcoholic drink if his attitude is anything to go by.

"C'mon guys. Let's get Max to the infirmary." Grover says while ushering the flock into the big farm house.

"Peter Johnston?" Nudge asks.

Mr. D doesn't really like being here and doesn't bother to remember the names of anyone." Grover answers with an awkward smile.

"Was he drunk?" Angel asks with a worried look on her face. Fang sees this but decides to ask about it later. He doubts Angel was worried about the angry cherubs health or anything.

"No, he's not allowed alcohol. He was drinking Diet Coke."

"He sure looked and sounded drunk." Gazzy mutters.

"That's for sure." Iggy agrees.

"Well, he is the god of wine." Grover comments in Mr. D's defense.

"Wait a minute. Are you seriously telling us that that guy is a god?" Nudge demands, causing Grover to nod.

"Yeah. He's Dionysus, the Greek god of wine."

"Seriously?" Gazzy asks.

"Completely."

"Well, I guess that explains it." Angel says, clearing the worried look off her face. The flock look at their youngest member questioningly.

"Angel?" Fang asks.

"Mr. D and Chiron. I couldn't read they're minds. I couldn't read the minds of the Gray Sisters or the flying thing either. It must have been because they were gods or monsters."

"Wow. You couldn't read their minds?" Nudge asks, not believing that there was anyone's mind Angel couldn't get into.

"Not surprising. I mean, they are gods and immortal beings." Grover reminds them.

"Anyways, what's a god doing here on Earth? Especially one that doesn't look like he wants to be here." Nudge questions.

"He was sent here as punishment for chasing after an off-limits wood nymph twice. His sentence is 100 years being the director of Camp Half-Blood with no wine and no grapes. That's why there's strawberry vines in the fields instead of grape vines."

"Grapes?" Angel asks curiously, not seeing what grapes have to do with a god of wine.

"Grapes are what wine is made out of." Fang inform her, clearing the confusion from her face.

"Oh." She simply says as the group steps into a room full of linen covered beds. A young man looks up from restocking the shelves when the group comes in.

"Hello. Can I help you?" He asks with a soothing tenor voice. The group relaxes almost immediately after hearing the young man speak.

"Yes." Grover starts, use to the young man's voice and not in the daze everyone else seemed to be in. "This girl-" Here, he points to the unconscious Max in Fang's arms. "-passed out after having an extreme migraine."

"I don't think it was a migraine." Fang disagrees, snapping out of the calm daze the young man's voice put him in after hearing Grover speak. "She was fine one minute, than screaming in pain the next. It was too extreme and fast for that to have been a migraine."

"Anyways, she's not a demigod, so don't give her any ambrosia or nectar." Grover warns. The young man opens his mouth to asks how she got through the barrier before he catches a glimpse of her wings and closes it.

"I'll see what I can do. Put her on one of the beds." Fangs shakes his head to keep him out of the calm daze the soft tenor wants to pull him into before nodding to the man and lays Max down on the closest bed.

"Thank you, um..." Fang starts to thank the young man with the hypnotic voice before realizing he did not know his name.

"Lee. Lee Fletcher. Son of Apollo and Head of the Apollo cabin." The young man, now known as Lee, answers with a smile and holds his hand out for a handshake. "And yourself?"

"Fang." The raven winged teen answers while shaking the offered hand. "The others are Iggy, Kai, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel."

"It's a pleasure to meet you all." Lee says with a nod. "As for helping your friend-"

"Max." Fang supplies.

"Max," Lee edits with a nod toward Fang. "It's no problem. I'm a son of Apollo. Healing is what I do."

"Apollo?" Angel and Gazzy ask at the same time. Lee laughs and nods.

"Yes. Apollo is my father. He's the Greek god of healing, among other things."

With this cleared up, Lee walks closer to Max until he is standing next to her bed. Slowly, he bends forward and brings his hands up to cup Max's head without actually touching her. Next, he closes his eyes and softly sings a short song in a foreign language, his voice more healing and heavenly than before. They find out from Angel reading Lee's mind that the song is an Ancient Greek hymn being sung to Lee's father Apollo. The group watches in stunned silence as a soft gold glow slowly appears around Max and jump when Lee speaks unexpectedly.

"I found the source of her pain and can remove it safely. I don't know exactly what it is, but it was surgically planted when she was young. There is also something in her arm. Should I get rid of both?" Here, the son of Apollo opens his eyes and looks at Fang, the supposed leader, with calm glowing gold eyes.

"Yes. Please." Fang answers, calmed so much by Lee's voice and gold gaze that he could barely keep enough tension in his leg muscles to keep himself standing. Lee nods and turns back to Max to sing a different, longer, song in Ancient Greek. Once the song is over, the golden glow disappears and Lee sits back on the side of the bed with a tired sigh.

"It's done. That took more energy than it should have because of how long it's been there and where it was, but Max is fine now. She just needs to wake up when she's ready to."

At hearing Lee's reassuring words, the flock simultaneously release worried breaths they weren't aware they were holding.

"That's good to hear!" Nudge exclaims, the entire flock agreeing with her.

"Thank you again." Fang thanks with a grateful smile.

"Like I said, it's no problem." Lee says, smiling in return. The healer turns to continue restocking the shelves when he pauses and turns back around. "Those things in Max's brain and arm, who put those there?"

"Probably the people that turned us into mutant bird freaks." Fang says with an angry frown on his face, arms crossed over his chest.

"So, you weren't born with wings?" Lee inquires curiously.

"Nope. Some scientists working for a place called "The School" did this to us when we were babies." Angel answers. The group looks at her in incredulity or, in Lee's and Grover's cases, curiosity.

"Wait a minute! So, we're not test tube babies? I mean, we knew Kai wasn't because we heard things from the scientists and everything, but we always assumed everyone else was test tube babies. How did you find out?" Iggy cries.

I heard it from the minds of the scientists. They somehow got the avian DNA into us before we were born using some sort of test. Then when we were born, they either told our parents that we died or our parents sold us to the School for money."

"That's terrible." Lee says, a sympathetic frown on his face. His frown deepens when he realizes something. "Wait a minute. You said you 'read it' from the minds of the scientists. What did you mean?"

"Angel can read minds." Fang answers nonchalantly. "Now, why were you asking about the chips?"

"I was wondering if it was possible for you guys to have those things in your arms and brains. Would you like me to find out and remove them if they are there?" Lee questions, getting disbelieving looks from the flock.

"Y-you would really do that?" Nudge stutters.

"Really?" Gazzy asks hopefully.

"Of course. I wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to." Lee responds, smiling sweetly at them.

The flock shares a look and nods.

"We would love it if you removed anything the School might have put in us." Fang accepts for the group. Lee grins and closes his eyes before singing the first Ancient Greek song. Like with Max, the flock begins to emit a soft golden glow. After a minute, Lee opens calm glowing gold eyes to stare at the flock.

"There are chips in everyone's arms, but nothing in the brain or anywhere else." he informs in his healing tenor before switching to the other song. This time, it takes much longer because of the amount of people.

Lee finishes the song and the glow fades away. Lee wobbles a bit, than falls forward, collapsing in Fangs arms.

"Lee!" The flock yells in shock and worry as they crowd around Fang.

"Is he alright?" Nudge asks.

"He's fine. Just tired." A new voice says from the doorway.

The group whips their heads in the direction of the new voice to see a young man a few years older than Kai leaning against the doorway.

"Who are you?" Fang questions, failing to reign in a look of suspicion. The tall blond in the doorway raises both eyebrows in slight surprise at Fang's look.

"Will Solace. Son of Apollo. I came here to tell you Chiron wanted to see everyone back on the porch and saw what happened. Anyways, don't worry about Lee. He's just tired from healing everyone. Go ahead and lay him on a bed. I'll look after him and send your friend after you when she wakes up." Will says calmly, blue eyes resting on Max when he says 'friend'.

"I don't know..." Fang says, staring at Max with an uneasy look on his face. Will sees the expression on Fangs face and smiles reassuringly.

"I won't hurt her or anything."

"I'm not worried about that." Fang says with an awkward smile directed towards Will.

"He's probably worried that Max will beat you up when she wakes up." Gazzy says, hitting the nail on the head.

"Yeah. She's the kind of person to punch now and ask questions later." Iggy agrees.

"Than it's decided." Fang says, finally laying Lee on the bed next to Max's. "I'll stay here and make sure Max doesn't freak out when she wakes up."

"Alright. Than I'll take everyone else to see Chiron." Grover speaks up.

The flock says goodbye to Fang for the moment and follows Grover out of the infirmary. The last thing Kai sees before the door shuts behind them is Fang sitting beside Max, holding her hand and staring at her with the most emotion Kai has ever seen from him.

End Chapter Six

AN:) I know that probably isn't how healing goes in the PJATO world and lee probably doesn't have a voice like that, but I don't really remember what lee is like or how people heal, so I took a creative license with it. I don't think he even shows up except to die in the battle at the labyrinth, actually...

Songs

Pokemon Theme (Dubstep Remix) by Arion

Zydrate Anatomy from Repo! The Genetic Opera

One Reason by Fade (Deadman Wonderland)

Resuscitated Hope by Lisa Komine (Gosick)

Howling by Abingdon School Boys (DARKER Than Black)

It's the End of the World As We Know It by Riddlin' Kids

T.N.T. by AC DC

Festival of Asylum by Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid)

The Black Pearl by Klaus Badelt (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)

My Immortal by Evanescence

One Minute To Midnight by Justice

Ninja Rap by Vanilla Ice

Matryoshka by Hatsune Miku and GUMI (Vocaloid)

Hikari Sasuhou by Back-on (Murder Princess)


	8. How To Stop Fights When You're Mute

icefox94: hello everyone! Sorry it's taken this long to update. I've been busy and distracted. Well, the important thing is I've finally updated, so enjoy the new chapter. I'm editing this at three in the morning, so if you see any mistakes that I missed... sorry.

Disclaimer: you should get it by now. I don't own The Lightning Thief or Maximum Ride, nor will I in the future, so no suing.

Chapter Seven: How To Stop Fights When You're Mute

"Chiron. Will said you wanted to see us?" Grover starts as the group walks out onto the porch. Chiron turns around from talking with a blond surfer with tons of blue eyes covering his body to smile at the flock.

"Yes, I did. I was just arranging transport with Argus here for you to see your mother, Percy."

"So, Kai get's to see his mother now?!" Nudge asks, excitement clear in her voice and facial expression.

"Are we all going to meet her?" Gazzy questions, only to have Iggy answer.

"Of course we are. I don't know about you guys, but with the School after us and monsters after Kai, I'm not letting him out of my presence!"

'Can they come? Please? As well as Max and Fang? They are my family as much as my mom and dad are. I want them to meet my parents as well.' Kai signs. When Chiron and Argus look at Kai in sad confusion, Angel translates for him. When he realizes what Kai is trying to ask, Chiron smiles again.

"Of course. There is no rush. We can wait until your friend is awake and ready to travel."

Kai beams and touches his right finger tips to his chin and pulls them away, a sign Chiron and Argus discovers means thank you.

"You are very welcome. Grover, why don't you show our guests around while they wait for their friend to wake up?"

"Okay. Come on, guys." Grover agrees and guides the group off of the porch and towards the cabins.

"What's with all of the cabins? They all look so different!" Nudge questions as they get close enough to see details.

"Each cabin was designed for a specific god or goddess. The children of these gods that are staying here live in the cabin made for their godly parent."

"What gods have cabins here?" Gazzy asks.

"If you knew anything about the gods, you could tell just by looking inside the cabins, but not everyone is friendly, so I'll just tell you. In order from one to twelve, you have Zeus: King of Olympus and God of the Skies and Lightning, Hera: Wife of Zeus and Goddess of Women and Marriages, Poseidon: God of the Sea, Demeter: Goddess of the Harvest, Ares, God of War, Athena: Goddess of Wisdom and Battle Strategy, Apollo: God of... lot's of things. Mostly light and the sun."

'Apollo... that's the father of Lee and Will, right?' Kai signs.

"Yeah, that's right." Grover answers after Gazzy translates, then continues naming off the gods the cabin's represent. "The cabin over there is for Artemis: Twin sister of Apollo and Maiden Goddess of the Hunt and Moon-"

"Maiden goddess?" Iggy interrupts, wondering why there is a cabin for someone who will never have children.

"She would be offended if she didn't get a cabin. Same as Hera. She's the goddess of marriage and would never have children with anyone other than Zeus, but she would find it offensive if she was left out." Grover explains, correctly guessing the blind mutant's confusion, making him nod in understanding.

"What about the other empty cabins?" Angel questions, looking at Cabins 1 and 3.

"Zeus and Poseidon aren't allowed to have children with mortals, not anymore. That's why their cabin are empty."

"Not allowed to have children?" Nudge exclaims.

"Nope. The Big Three, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, aren't allowed to have children anymore because they are too powerful."

"Too powerful?" Iggy repeats."

"You've heard of the Word Wars, right? They were caused by a fight between children of the Big Three."

The five bird kids shivered at that. To cause a world war just by having an argument... it's no wonder that rule was made.

"And what about that cabin? There are so many people there." Angel questions again while pointing to Cabin 11.

"Oh, we haven't gotten there yet. That's Hermes' Cabin. He's mainly the messenger god, but he's also the god of a lot of other things, kinda like Apollo. One of these things is travelers. Anyone who is unclaimed by their godly parent or are the children of minor gods stay there."

"What if a demigod is never claimed?" asks Nudge.

"Than they stay there until they leave Camp Half-Blood for good." Grover says sadly while staring at the overpopulated cabin.

"... So, Cabin 8 was Artemis... Who's next?" Iggy questions in an attempt to change the topic.

"Next is Hephaestus: God of the Forge, then there's Aphrodite: Goddess of Love and Beauty. You already heard about Hermes' cabin, and last but not least is Dionysus: God of Wine."

"Dionysus? As in Mr. D? He has children?" Iggy blurts in surprise, his expression mirroring the rest of the flock.

"Yes, he does. Only two though. They are twins, Castor and Pollux."

"Twins?" Gazzy repeats.

"Yeah. They're over in the strawberry fields right about now, making them grow."

"Strawberry fields? You guys grow strawberries?!" Angel asks excitedly, making Grover laugh.

"Yeah, we do. Come on, I'll show you." Grover offers and turns in the right direction to lead them there when he suddenly stops and bleats nervously. The flock is about to ask him what is wrong when the problem decides to make itself known.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? Newcomers?" A big muscled girl with a mean smile asks.

"I don't think so Clarisse. Look at what they got on their backs!" Another mean girl, not as muscled and slightly shorter, comments.

"Oh yeah, the wings. Almost forgot about them. What kinda freaks are you? Ya don't look like harpies to me, and there are only female harpies anyways." Clarisse observes as she circles the group.

"Same for sirens." A third girl says, knocking another possibility off the list. "'Sides, both harpies and sirens are impossible since the barrier keeps out monsters."

"Than what are they?" Clarisse demands.

"We're mutants, not like it's any of your business." Nudge answers, glaring at the trio of bullies.

"Mutants? What, like X-Men?" Clarisse taunts, bursting into laughter with her friends and half-sisters at the flock's glares.

"Hey, what's your problem?! We didn't do anything to you!" Iggy yells while turning the heat up on his glare. Clarisse stops laughing and glares back as she walks up to the strawberry blond and invades his personal space.

"What's my problem? My problem is I don't like having mutant bird freaks polluting my eyes and ears with their freakishness." Here, she loses the glare in favor of a smug smirk. "Especially blind bean poles I can snap in half like the twigs they are."

"Snap me in half?! I'd like to see you try!" Iggy goads, muscles and wings tensing for flight.

"Bring it on, ya blind bird freak." Clarisse antagonizes back.

The minute Clarisse and her cabin mates appeared, Kai knew there was going to be trouble. When no one was paying attention, he had Grover leave to tell Chiron what was happening and have Gazzy and Angel get Fang. Kai decided to stay behind to try to calm Nudge and, more importantly, Iggy, but had little success. When people are really mad, they aren't going to pay much attention to someone tugging on their clothes or trying to pull them away. Without a voice, it was almost impossible for Kai to get the attention of his brother and sister. When it looked like the fight was going to start, Kai, forgetting he was mute, screamed at the top of his lungs.

'Stop it!'

The second the silent scream left the mute boy's lips, the most extraordinary thing happened. No, he did not miraculously get his voice back, nor did his siblings and the bullies notice him. No, what happened was something entirely different. A rumbling was heard, followed by the ground shaking.

"What's going on?" One of Clarisse's friends demands.

"How should I know?!" Clarisse angrily responds right before the question is answered.

The nearby water fountain, the lake, the drinking fountains, toilets, faucets, anything with water burst open as the water they contained shot into the air above the two angry bird kids and three demigods.

"What the he-" was all Iggy and Clarisse could utter before the speeding water covers the group of five.

_Camp Half-Blood Infirmary_

Max groans in pain as she finally regains consciousness.

"Ugh, my head." Max moans as she slowly opens her eyes.

"It's about time you woke up." Fang teased with a relieved smile on his face. "You're slow." Max grins weakly at this.

"Slow? I was just taking my time waking up. What's the rush?" Not expecting an answer, Max slowly sits up and begins her questions.

"What happened?"

"We were flying when you suddenly screamed and passed out."

"Oh, is that what happened?"

"Yeah, scared the crap out of everyone. When you started to fall, I caught you and was suggesting we find a place to land when Kai was attacked."

"What?! Kai was attacked?! By who?! Is he okay?!" Max questions as she begins to panic and go into mother hen mode.

"Kai is fine, so calm down." Fang orders sternly. Once the brunette leader calms down, he continues. "As for what attacked Kai, I'm not sure. we never did find out. It was a flying creature that kept raving about Kai stealing a lightning bolt."

"A lightning bolt." Max reiterates slowly to make sure she heard right.

"Yes."

"As in, the bright hot things that appear in the sky during storms? The things that will fry you if you touch them?"

"That's what it sounds like."

"Fang... you know how ridiculous that sounds, right?" Max questions slowly.

"Hey, I didn't tell the crazy old screeching thing what to say, I just repeated it." Fang defends himself as he puts his hands up in a sign of surrender.

"But how could anyone steal something as intangible as a lightning bolt? And not only that, who would you even steal a lightning bolt from?" Max demands, not necessary expecting a real answer but got one anyways.

"Zeus."

Not expecting to hear anyone's voice other than Fang's and her own, Max jumps and spins around to face the speaker, wings flared and body poised to attack at any sudden movements from the two boys out of reach in front of her.

"You were right Fang. Thanks for sticking around until your friend woke up. I don't even want to know what would have happened if you weren't here." A blue eyed blond comments as he puts down the bottles he was shelving and turns to face the two mutants. If he wouldn't have been listening to Fang's suggestions while checking up on Max, he probably would be peeling himself out of a wall right now from getting hit by her fists, her kicks, or a flap of those massive wings.

The other boy, obviously an older relation of the first boy and the one who spoke first, slowly sits up from the bed next to Max's, being careful to avoid her outstretched wings. You can only tell he has just woken up by the slightly cloudy look in the teens half lidded eyes, and even that is fading fast.

"Yes, she is jumpy and that can be annoying sometimes, but it's saved us more times than we can count, so I don't mind." Fang explains before turning to Max, who he had grabbed by the shoulders when she jumped and spun around. "Max, relax. These guys helped us after you passed out. Lee Fletcher here is in bed because he passed out from exhaustion from helping us. After he passed out, Will Solace over there made sure to check on you in between restocking shelves just to make sure they didn't miss anything until you woke up."

"Really?" Max questions. Fang simply nods in answer. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Not for very long. I'd say somewhere between two to three hours. Thirty minutes to an hour was spent here in the infirmary." Lee supplies as he looks at Max's face and the position of the sun outside.

"How do you know that?" Max and Fang question at the same time as they stare in shock at Lee.

"He's just that good. He can tell how long you've been sleeping just by a quick look at your face and he can tell how much time you've spent here by looking at the position of the sun and where it was when you first came here. That reason and many more are why Lee is the counselor of the Apollo Cabin." Will says with pride as he walks up to Lee's bed and hugs his half brother, who blushes at the praise.

"Wow, that's amazing." Max praises with an impressed look on her face. Fang nods his head in agreement. Lee just rubs his head in embarrassment, refusing to admit the fact that he hid his face in Will's stomach as he did do. He wasn't hiding his face, Will just happened to be standing in the direction he was looking.

"It's not all that impressive. You just have to learn the signs of sleep and how to tell time using the sun. Every son and daughter of Apollo learn these things."

"Yeah, but none of them are as good as you are. Stop being so hard on yourself and give yourself some credit." Will admonishes,as if he were the older of the two. Lee smiles at his younger brother and ruffles his hair.

"Thanks Will." Lee thanks.

"Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. Stop treating me like a kid." Will scolds with a blush of embarrassment as he tries to fix his messy blond hair. Lee just laughs at the scolding.

"Watching them kinda reminds me of our family." Fang says quietly as he moves from the chair to the bed, sitting next to Max and rests his chin on her left shoulder.

"Yeah, they kinda do." Max agrees as she calmly leans her head against Fang's, not realizing how intimate their position could be seen as. Being reminded of her flock made her frown. "Where is everyone?"

"Outside, looking around. They're fine." Fang answers and assures in the same breath, not wanting her to go into mother hen mode again.

"That raises another question. Where are we?"

"Some place called Camp Half-Blood. There's a barrier around this place that keeps out monsters and humans, so we're safe here."

"Monsters? You mean the thing that attacked Kai?"

"Yeah. Apparently there are more around looking for him, so we followed someone who works here from California to.. well, this place. Apparently it's in New York, but I wasn't paying much attention because our transport was three mostly blind crazy taxi drivers."

"You came here in a taxi and it only took an hour or two..." Max repeats, a disbelieving look on her face.

"They were **really** crazy taxi drivers." Fang says, a slightly horrified look on his face as he remembers the drive to camp. Seeing the look on her right wing man's face, Max shutters. For once, she was glad that she was passed out the entire time.

"I don't wanna know, if remembering about it scares you that much." Max denies, tensing her muscles enough to stay upright when she feels Fang slump against her in relief.

"Thank you." Fang graciously thanks as he wraps his arms around her waist in a grateful hug. Having her back to him, Max doesn't return the hug, but rubs his arms with her right hand as her left pats Fang's head.

"There, there. Everything is okay. The taxi is gone and the crazy drivers with it, and there's a barrier around this place, so the crazy flying thing can't come in here either. Speaking of which..." Here, Max turns to the two brothers, who had gotten back to work by then. "Lee Fletcher and Will Solace, correct?"

The two turn from restocking to look at the two winged teens, both noticing their comfortable position but deciding it best they not say anything. It seemed to be purposeful on Fang's part, but Max looked oblivious and seemed to be the type to freak out and distance herself if she noticed she was getting too close to someone.

"Yes, that's correct. I'm Lee and my younger half brother is Will. Did you need anything Max?"

"Yeah, earlier before you two startled me, Fang and I were talking about a supposedly stolen lightning bolt, and when I asked who you would steal lightning from, one of you spoke. What did you say?" Max questions as she stares at the brothers. The two sons of Apollo exchange uneasy looks before Lee turns back to answer.

"I was the one that spoke. I said that you could steal a lightning bolt from Zeus." Here, he pauses and both brothers stare nervously at the ceiling as they hear the sky rumble.

"It's his symbol of power." Will finishes weakly. "His master bolt has been stolen. The Lord of the Underworld must believe your friend Kai stole it if he sent a Kindly One after him."

"A Kindly What? Lord of the Who? What are you guys talking about?" Max demands in confused frustration. The two exchange more uneasy looks and turn back to answer when Angel and Gazzy burst into the infirmary.

"Fang! Max! Come quick!" Angel shouts as she sees Fang with an awake Max.

"Angel! Gazzy! What's wrong?" Max asks as her and Fang jump up and the healers quickly walk up to the four.

"Iggy and Nudge are getting into a fight with three strong looking girls. I think one of them was named Clarisse?" Angel answers with a question at the end as she turns to Lee and Will.

"We need to stop them then. Clarisse is a daughter of Ares and counselor of the Ares Cabin. She's dangerous." Lee answers the look as the group hurries to the front of the Big House.

"Ares? Isn't that the Greek god of war? And you mention Zeus earlier. That's the Greek god of the skies."

"Correct and correct." Will says. "The gods are real. This camp houses, trains, and protects the half-human, half-god children of the Greek gods. The creature you guys encountered was more than likely a Furie, what we call Kindly Ones. They work for Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. The taxi you came here in was run by the Gray Sister's Taxi Service, run by the Three Fates. We give everyone nicknames and use titles instead of their real names because names are powerful and should be used wisely. The rumbling earlier is because I said the name of the God of the Skies. I know it all sounds crazy, but it's true."

"How could any of this possibly be true?" Max demands to know as they walk out of the Big House. They are joined by a **goat man and a centaur** just in time to witness all of the nearby water shoot into the air and race to the middle of the cabins where it practically drowns three muscled girls and two scrawny bird kids. Another bird kid is panting heavily in disbelief at the drenched group in front of him.

"... How else would you explain all of this?" Lee finally questions as he indicates the wet mutants and demigods, the centaur, the satyrs, pegasi, nymphs, naiads, and everything else only explainable through mythology that had gathered to watch the fight.

"... Let me get back to you on that." Max replies hesitantly as she tries to take everything in. Giving up after an awkward pause, she jogs down the Big House steps and starts towards the waterlogged group, the rest of the group following her.

"What ha-" Grover is about to ask when they hear a commotion by the entrance of the camp.

The campers who were gathered around the group out of simple curiosity scattered at the noise of destruction. The more gentle and inexperienced run away from the noise while the brave and experienced grab their weapons and run for the entrance.

Chiron orders Grover to get the panicking campers to calm down and go somewhere safe, than has the Apollo siblings go prepare the infirmary for possible injured. Once this is taken care of he gallops towards the entrance, fluidly pulling a bow and arrow off his back as he did so.

"Argus, what happened?" Chiron asks as he continues up the hill.

"The Minotaur, among other monsters, are trying to break the camp barrier." Argus answers grimly, a few blue eyes staring at Chiron and Mr. D on his other side while the rest stayed aimed towards the front.

"How long do we have before the barrier falls?" Mr. D questions, almost sounding bored. If the need arose for him to fight, he would do his duty and protect the camp and campers, he was more than enough to take out the creatures, but he wouldn't step in unless he was absolutely needed.

"I can't say. We've never been under continuous assault like this before. Considering the amount of monsters and their strength, I doubt it will take very long.

"Can the archers shoot through the barrier without breaking it?" Max questions as the flock hovers over the campers.

"Well, yes. It is a magic barrier, so there is no problem with us defending ourselves inside of it." Chiron answers. Max nods.

"Good. Have the archers aim for the monsters. We'll handle the Minotaur." Max orders. Before Chiron can protest, the flock fly out of the barrier and hit the bull man with aerial attacks.

"Archers, attack!" Chiron orders to the archers on either side of him atop the hill. In unison, they nod, notch their arrows, and fire. Next, he turns to the rest of the fighters in front of him. "The rest of you, I want you to be ready to fight when the barrier falls."

End Chapter 7

**Songs**

Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

Bells of Notre Dame (female cover) sung by Marina Brouwer (Hunchback of Notre Dame)

River Flows In You by Yiruma

Flying Spaghetti Monster by Doctor P

Star Wars (John Williams is the Man) by ApprenticeA

Baba Yetu by Christopher Tin (Civilization IV)

Devil's Never Cry by … peoples (Devil May Cry)

Twister byTakeharu Ishimoto (The World Ends With You)

Ghost by Gackt

Avengers Assemble (One Direction Parody) by Screen Team

The One Star by Takeharu Ishimoto (TWEWY)

One Man Les Miserables Medley by Nick Pitera


	9. Minotaurs, Barbeque, and Bath Houses

icefox: sorry for taking so long to update. I will repent by writing a longer than normal chapter. XD seriously though, it just turned out that way, but it's still nice, right? Normally, chapters are around 10 pages, including author's notes, and this one is 13 pages exactly without the authors notes.

About the heroes of olympus, I just got the blood of olympus this morning for my birthday (it's my birthday, by the way. :D), so no blood of olympus spoilers for... let's say a month, just in case I get busy. It will probably take less than a week to read, but I never know how busy life will keep me... so, yeah, as of right now, on October 15th, 2014, I've only read a few chapters.

Happy Birthday to Reborn (October 13th) and Tsuna (October 14th) from Katekyo Hitman Reborn!, Naruto (October 10th) from Naruto, and me. none of those characters have anything to do with this story, but I thought it they should be mentioned anyways, just because.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Maximum Ride. Those honors go to Rick Riordan and James Patterson.

Chapter 8: Minotaurs, Barbeque, and Bath Houses

"So, what's the plan now, Oh Fearless Leader?" Iggy drawls as the flock hovers over an angry bull man. They were successful with moving the Minotaur away from the rest of the creatures, and out of the archers' way, but now they were simply hovering over the monster and dodging his attacks when needed.

"Iggy, Gazzy, do either of you ha- Kai, what are you doing?!" Max starts to say but cuts herself off as the winged mute allows himself to fly low enough for the Minotaur to charge him.

"Kai, you idiot!" Fang shouts as he kicks the Minotaur and gets the creature to focus on him while Max flies Kai to a safe height. While that got Kai out of danger, it only switched him out for Fang. The black haired teen tries to fly up to safety, but the Minotaur's flailing arms made it difficult and he couldn't fly away to get out of range without risk of the monster charging him. Seeing this issue, Nudge flies over to a nearby tree and yanks a pine cone off of one of the branches.

"Over here, you big furry!" Nudge cries as she throws the prickly bundle of bark at the Minotaur to distract him from Fang. The raven winged teen nods in thanks as the enraged bull charges Nudge, allowing Fang to join the rest of the flock. The Minotaur roars in frustration when his attempted charge can't reach his target.

Back with Max and Kai, a certain mute with blue love bird wings is getting a lecture by his peregrine falcon winged leader.

"What on earth were you thinking?! If Fang and I weren't here, you would have been killed!" Max shouts with a glare.

'I wouldn't have died. I had a plan.' Kai signs.

"Not a very good one, if it got you that close to danger."

'It was a good plan. I'll show you if you let me try again.'

"Try again?! If you fail, you die! Do you want that?!"

'It's better than the creature winning and everyone dying.' Kai signs back, stunning Max into shocked silence. Kai smiles at her then and rubs her shoulder in comfort, with the option of hugging her thrown out of the window during flight. 'Relax, I do not plan on dying today. I know what I'm doing, so please, trust me.'

Max stares at her young foster sibling for what seems to be a long moment, before she sighs and gestures towards the angry bull man.

"Alright, I'll trust you with this. Just don't break my trust and get killed."

Kai beams at Max before flying back down to the Minotaur's eye level and flailed his arms to get his attention once more. The Minotaur sees the flash of sea foam green and silver feathers and wastes no time in correctly alining himself before charging. Kai waits for the last possible moment before flipping out of the way, slowly descending as he watches the bull man struggle to free the horn he just impaled in the tree previously behind Kai. It takes a few moments before he frees himself, but not without breaking his horn off and leaving it in the tree. Kai smiles at the broken horn and turns towards his family.

'If possible, I will need you all to distract him while I get the horn out of the tree.' Kai signs to his waiting flock. Max snorts at this and shakes her head.

"If possible? Kai, what do you take us for? Of course we can distract him while you retrieve the broken horn. Right guys?"

"Right!"

"Great. We'll start with attack formation A. Kai, take as much time as you need. Just don't linger when you don't need to, okay?"

Kai nods and waits for the attacks to effectively distract the Minotaur before flying down to the tree and digging the horn out. The plan seemed to be going well, until the Minotaur got annoyed and managed to smack Nudge out of the sky, also taking out Angel when she can't get out of Nudges way in time.

"Nudge! Angel!" Max screams as she shoots for the fallen bird kids shaking with fright on the ground. Iggy and Gazzy distract the bull with homemade fire crackers and small explosives while Max picks up Angel and Fang grabs Nudge. Kai sees this and pulls harder, managing to release the horn from the tree's grip in his desperation.

Unfortunately, the momentum also makes him rocket towards the Minotaur.

Using his wings to flip around to face the enemy and aid his collected speed, he pushes the horn in front of him like a two handed sword in time to pierce the chest of it's previous owner. The bullman screams in pain and bursts into gold sand, leaving the horn behind.

The flock doesn't allow themselves a moment to breathe before ascending and helping the campers pick off the remaining monsters. This task is much easier and less time consuming than the first considering how much weaker the rest of the monsters are.

Once the last monster bursts into gold dust, Chiron calls the campers and the flock to gather around him, before speaking.

"Good work, everyone. Nicely done. Thanks to your efforts, Camp Half-Blood is safe. Any injured are to go to the infirmary-" Here, the white centaur stares pointedly at the hovering bird kids "-to seek help from the healers. The uninjured will split into teams to care for the wounded and clean up the mess the monsters made of our front door. Afterward, we will feast in honor of our victory."

The campers have no issues with this, cheering loudly before going about their jobs. As the large crowd disbands, the flock check each other for injuries.

"Angel, Nudge, are you two alright?" Max questions as she mothers the two children.

"I'm okay, I was just a little shocked at the impact is all." Angel answers, voice strong but body still getting over the fear induced shakes.

"My ribs are a little bruised, but nothing a little time won't heal on it's own." Nudge reports as she lifts her shirt slightly to show a large black and purple bruise dominating her torso.

"We'll still have Lee or Will look over it. How about you, Kai? Did you get injured at all when you dodged that thing or stabbed him?" Max questions, to which Kai simply shakes his head. Max breathes a sigh of relief and turns to the rest of her flock. She is a very observant leader and already knew the others were fine, but she asked anyways, just in case.

"We're fine, Max. We didn't get near that thing, so stop worrying so much." Iggy assures with a tease. Max frowns at this and turns away to hide her embarrassment.

"I can't help it. You guys are my family, so of course I worry about you. Now let's go back to the infirmary for a check up."

"Yes ma'am." The flock chimes with a mock salute before following their leader to the Big House. Given their abilities, it takes no time at all to reach the building and land in front of the patiently waiting Will and Lee.

"What happened?" Lee questions as he leads the group inside for examinations.

"Monsters showed up at your front door and tried to get in uninvited." Max explains while herding her flock to the beds before sitting down herself.

"We didn't let them in, of course. They didn't even have an invitation." Nudge scoffs as she falls backwards to lay on the comfortable bed horizontally, wincing as her ribs scream at her in protest.

"So rude." Angel agrees with a nod and crosses arms.

"Were you guys the only ones injured in this unexpected visit." Will inquires around a poorly suppressed laugh.

"Yeah, the campers stayed behind the barrier while we picked the monsters off from the skies." Fang explains, crossing his own arms as he closes his eyes in thought. "A few of us got injured while fighting the Minotaur, but I think that's the only creature that hurt us."

"The other monsters were a piece of cake!" Iggy cheers, his cloudy eyes lighting up at the memory.

"Yeah! Our bombs were awesome!" Gazzy whoops in joy, causing Will and Lee's eyes to widen and their complexion to lighten to a ghostly white.

"Bombs?!"

"Yeah, Gazzy and Iggy are always making them." Nudge says with a dismissive wave of her hand, which didn't help Will and Lee's anxiety at all. They had heard the noise from the weapons and felt the ground shaking, but they never would have guessed the loud bangs and tremors were from homemade explosives. Max sighs at her caramel skinned charge and waves her hands in front of her.

"It's not what you think. The bombs they used were small and only big enough to harm the monsters. You're not gunna go outside and find a ton of craters in the ground or anything."

"Oh. Well, as long as they didn't hurt anybody with them or destroy anything, I guess it's alright." Lee says in response, which Iggy and Gazzy take offense to.

"Of course we didn't hurt anyone! What do you take us for?!" Iggy snarls at the son of Apollo.

"We're not Erasers or anything!" Gazzy retaliates as well. Fang mirrors his leader's sigh of exasperation and smashes the heads of the enraged bird kids together.

"Knock it off, you two. They weren't trying to insult you, they were just worried about their home is all."

"You can't blame them for the way they reacted. Bombs are usually pretty destructive and hurt anyone around them when they go off." Angel reasons. Max nods at the voices of reason.

"Fang and Angel are right. Iggy, Gazzy, I want you two to apologize for the way you reacted."

"That's not fair Max!" Iggy shouts in anger as he rubs the sore side of his head. Max glares at the insubordination.

"You heard someone get worried over something you did and assumed the worst, so you blew up on them. Those types of actions warrant an apology. Cool your head and tell him you are sorry for the way you treated him, especially after all he has done and is still doing for us."

Iggy continues to glare at Max for a few seconds before scoffing and turning his head away.

"Alright, fine! I'm sorry for what I said."

"I'm sorry too." Gazzy apologizes with a bowed head. Lee smiles and dismisses the apologies with a wave of his hand.

"Don't worry about it. I should be the one apologizing. I heard 'bomb' and immediately focused on worry for my friends and my home. It wasn't my intention to make you think I thought badly of you."

"Well, now that that's settled, shall we get back to work?" Will questions while tossing a roll of bandages in the air in boredom.

"Yes, we shall. Who is injured the most?"

"Probably Nudge. She got a direct hit by the Minotaur, then crashed into Angel on her way to the ground." Max explains. Lee nods and requests Nudge to show him where she is hurt. The talkative mutant lifts her shirt to show off her bruise while chatting about the previous fight. Lee studies the bruise before turning to Will.

"No broken or cracked bones, but she does have a rather nasty bruise, so bring some salve over here."

"Sure."

Once Will hands the healing salve to his older brother, Lee begins Nudge's healing process by spreading a generous amount over her swelling abdomen. After wards, he has the still talking mutant sit up so that the two healers can wrap the bruise. Will is tolerant of the chatterbox, simply rolling his eyes at some of her words and shaking his head, while Lee listens attentively with a patient smile on his face and even engages in the conversation. This makes the flock drop their jaws in shocked amazement. While all of them loved the winged girl to bits, none of them are that patient with her. Lee must have the patients of a saint.

"You will be pretty sore for the next week or two, so try not to move around too much, or you'll make it worse. Your bones are bruised as well as your skin, and those types of injuries always take longer to heal. Come back tomorrow so that I can change your bandages.

"Kay!" Nudge says with a raised hand, then winces as the action puts stress on her bruised bones. "Right. Taking it easy."

Lee smiles at the remark and turns to the youngest flock member. "Next."

The examination process continues this way until everyone has been checked. Angel comes away from it with mild bruises and a few scrapes from cushioning Nudge's impact with the ground while Kai only had some torn skin on his fingers from hastily digging the monster horn out of the tree. Once everyone has been examined for injures, Max turns to the brothers and nods her head in gratitude.

"Thank you for your help, Lee. Will." Max says in a show of gratitude for her flock's treatment.

"It was my pleasure." Lee replies with a small bow. Will rolls his eyes and slings an arm over his half sibling's shoulders.

"Come on, guys. With all of the help they had cleaning up, the campers should be getting ready for the feast by now."

"Was our achievement really so great to warrant a feast?" Max questions as the group makes their way out of the infirmary.

"Our dinners are always grand enough to call a feast, so it's not really that big. It's the accompanying party that is the big deal. We have one whenever we have any new campers or someone comes back safely from a quest. The new camper as well as our victory will make for quite the party." Lee explains with a wink aimed at Kai, who blushes in embarrassment.

"We've never had to deal with an attack like that. I wonder what drew the monsters here in the first place." Will ponders as he glances up at the darkening celestial blanket above them.

"That's a good question. The barrier is usually pretty good at masking our scents. Maybe something malfunctioned?"

"Whatever it was, we can worry about it later, right? Because I'm really hungry." Nudge whines. Lee and Will laugh at that and nod their heads.

"You don't have to worry about that. We can talk with Chiron and Mr. D about it. You just worry about getting some food and healing. Everything is healthy, but you can't tell with the way the wood nymphs prepare the food."

"I have no objections with that. What about the rest of you?" Max agrees and glances around at her starving family.

"No objections!" They chime.

"Great. So, anything we should know before we start to eat?"

"Well, after you get your plate, you have to go to the bonfire before you sit down. You pick the best food on your plate, like a particularly juicy looking steak or your biggest and reddest strawberry, and toss it into the fire as a tribute to the gods. Normally, campers give tribute to their godly parent, but if that parent is unknown, they can pay tribute to Hermes for sheltering them in his cabin or give a nameless tribute to their parent in hopes that they will reveal themselves eventually. Since you guys don't have godly parents, you can give tribute to all of the gods in general with your offering or choose one that you relate to and want to give thanks to."

"What god could we possibly give thanks to with the lives we have?" Iggy scoffs as he angrily shoves his hands in his pockets. "Where were they when we were taken by the School and experimented on for most of our lives? Where were they when we were starving or hurt? If gods truly do exist, then why did they ignore us when we were suffering?"

"Iggy, I know you're upset, but you're taking your anger out on the wrong people." Max lectures with a stern look and tone at the rebellious blind teen. "Lee and Will have been nothing but kind to us and the people of this camp are helping Kai find his parents. They're good people. And you know from our religion studies with Jeb that gods don't interfere directly with the lives of mortals because that would defeat the purpose of us having free will. They can protect us from otherworldly things, but they can't protect us from ourselves."

"As for what gods to offer tribute to, there are many possibilities." Lee informs as they approach the dining pavilion. "You can give offerings to the God of the Skies for keeping the skies clear while you fly, Hermes for giving you calm winds to fly on or for save passage while traveling, Demeter: Goddess of Harvest for the food you eat, Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt for any meat you eat, ect. If you can think of any big aspect of your life that you are thankful for, thank the god or goddess that presides over it. If you fail to find something like this, you can always send up a message asking Kai's father to come forward and claim him as his son, though he might be busy given the current situation and probably won't respond."

The flock stare at each other for a moment, before seeming to agree on something and turn back to the cabin mates.

"Can you give offerings to more than one god?" Fang questions before anyone else ask their real questions. While Fang is gathering information, Max subtly gets Angel's attention. When the blond stares at her mother figure curiously, Max taps her own head. Angel nods in understanding and mentally pokes at the brown and white winged leader.

_'Scan the minds of the others and if anyone wants to ask about why Kai's father would be busy, tell them to keep the questions to themselves. We'll have a meeting tonight and trade stories. Fang and I have an idea what might be going on with Fang's father.'_

_'What if they don't want to? I'm sure Gazzy and Nudge won't have any issues, but you know how Iggy's been lately.'_

_'I know, Ange, but he knows how important subtlety can be. I'm sure he'll cooperate. If not, let me know and I'll talk to him.'_

_'Okay, I'll try.'_

_'Thanks, sweetie.'_

_'You're welcome, Max.'_

As Max and Angel come out of their mental conversation, Will is finishing up the explanation of how the offerings work. Max smiles with obvious gratitude towards the two cabin mates for their helpful instructions and voices her thanks.

"I think we get it now. Thank you for the help."

"No problem." Lee and Will answer in tandem as they stop at the back of the line for the buffet. The hungry mutants shift their weight around impatiently as the mouthwatering smell of the food make their grumbling stomachs protest loudly.

When it is finally the flock's turn to fill up their plates, Max and Fang make sure they remember to keep a particularly good piece of food in mind for the offering and to think of a god they can pray to. As guests that will be eating a lot of food and taking up a lot of sleeping space, they felt it was only right that they abide by their customs, as much as their stomachs protested at letting any food go to waste in a fire.

"What's the point in offering food? They don't even eat this stuff, do they?" Nudge questions as she stares forlornly at a slice of ham she will be offering.

"From what I remember of Greek Mythology, they eat Ambrosia and drink Nectar. They don't eat any of the food offered to them, they just like the smoke from the burning food." Max informs, also staring at her tribute, a couple of large strawberries and piece of freshly baked bread.

"That's even worse. Why give them precious food if they aren't even going to eat it?" Iggy scoffs as he glares down at his own plate.

"Probably because it smells incredible." Fang comments, eyes closed in pleasure and he catches a whiff of the smoke coming from his burning apple.

"Really?!" The flock chime in unison.

"Yeah. I could probably live off of this smell alone if I had to." Fang affirms with a grin.

"That's probably stretching it, but the smell is quite good." Max agrees with a grin as she takes in the smell of her bread and strawberries burning in the bonfire. While she thought the bread would smell decent at first, she didn't think burning strawberries would smell good at all, especially mixed in with the scents of the previous tributes, but the smoke really did smell heavenly.

The flock leader and her wing man stand off to the side of the line while waiting for the younger group members to give their offerings and make their prayers before walking as a group towards the tables.

"Where do you think we should sit? It looks like the tables are assigned." Fang observes as he takes in the tables and how similar the people of each table looked. A moderately tall blond (in comparison to the flock) at an over crowded table sees the group hovering around the bonfire and waves them over.

"Hey new kids, you're over here." the teen says while pointing to the table when the bird kids come within hearing range. "There's a strict rule about campers eating with their cabins, so since you guys haven't been acknowledged by your godly parent's, you're sitting with us."

"What if you don't have a godly parent?" Max questions.

"What, like the satyrs and nymphs? Then you can sit wherever you want, but the unclaimed demigods have to sit at the Hermes table." the unnamed boy reveals as he scratches his head and crosses his arms.

"Well, Kai is the only one that has a godly parent, as you put it, but we're a family and we're not going to leave him to eat alone with strangers. No offense." Fang informs as he tries to figure out a solution to their problem. Kai can only sit at the Hermes table and they can sit wherever they want, but the Hermes table is too full and won't fit the entire flock. The blue eyed blond sees the problem and smiles.

"None taken. Family is important, even if you aren't blood related. How about I go talk to Mr. D and see if he'll give permission for you to choose your own table until a better solution can be found? Simple math shows that not everyone will fit here and he's not so cruel as to force family to be apart. Otherwise, he would be sitting on his own instead of with Castor and Pollux."

"Do you think so? He didn't seem that nice when we met him." Nudge replies doubtfully.

"Yeah, he acted like a grumpy drunk." Gazzy adds.

"That's just how he is. I'll go talk to him, so just wait here. It'll only take a minute."

"Okay, thank you." Fang thanks.

"Sure. I'm Luke Castellen, by the way. Nice to meet you guys."

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Fang, and this is Max, Iggy, Kai, Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel."

"Those are some interesting names. I like them." Luke says with a grin of amusement before running off to table 12. He starts an animated argument with the god, moving his arms around energetically while seemingly convincing him why he should allow all of the flock to sit where ever they want. Mr. D did not look amused, getting a more visibly annoyed look on his face the longer the conversation stretched out. Castor and Pollux, the god of wine's twin children, grin from their seats on each side of their father while moving their gaze back and forth between the verbal tennis game. Mr. D finally sighs as he scoffs out his final answer and waves the child of Hermes away. The blond says goodbye with a triumphant smile and walks back over to the waiting bird mutants.

"I got you the okay to sit where you want. Just try to stay away from the empty tables. It may upset a few people upstairs, if you know what I mean." Luke says with a thumb jabbing up towards the glittering indigo sky.

"We know what you mean. Thank you for your help, Luke."

"Yeah, thanks man." Fang says in agreement with his leader.

"No problem. Chiron or Mr. D will give his welcoming speech for -Kai, was it?- soon, so I'd find a seat." Luke finalizes as he shoos the group away from the overcrowded table. Before the group can look around and decide on a table, Lee waves them over to the Apollo table.

"Having problems finding a place to eat?"

"Kind of. Kai was confined to the Hermes table, but we didn't want to leave him alone, so Luke talked to Mr. D and convinced him to let us sit where we want." Max explains, smacking Gazzy's hands away from his plate before he can start eating while standing, causing the younger bird kid to pout at his leader.

"Sounds like Luke, always looking out for others. If you can sit where you want, why don't you sit with us? You already know Will and I and the rest of our cabin is really nice."

"Sounds like a plan. Very well then, we will take you up on your offer. Sit down, everyone." Max thanks as she herds her charges onto the benches around the table.

"No problem." Lee responds with a smile, frowning slightly as he sees a few kids picking up food or eating utensils. "Hey, no eating yet. Wait for the speech."

"Luke mentioned a speech as well. What's it about?" Angel questions as Gazzy, Nudge, and Iggy stare forlornly at their plates. Kai shakes his head at the trio for their impatience and stares curiously at his glowing goblet. Lee sees the look and gestures for Will to do the explaining while he shows the young bird kid how to fill the enchanted goblet with any drink he wanted.

"Yes. As our activities director, and because Mr. D doesn't like to socialize with us, Chiron usually gives most of the speeches, so we'll be hearing from him about today's events and any announcements that need to be heard. Mr. D will also talk for a bit to welcome you guys to camp, unless he's feeling particularly sour." Will explains for his cabin leader.

"He's going to be visibly upset about it though and he's going to get everyone's names wrong." a short boy with raven hair and oak brown eyes scoffs as his narrowed eyes looks down his pointed nose at the god in question. Lee shakes his head and turns back to the curiously staring flock.

"Don't mind him. He has a lot of attitude, but you couldn't ask for a better friend."

"You make it sound like I'm grumpy for the sake of being grumpy." the young man grumbles. Will's eyes widen in fake innocence.

"You mean you aren't?"

This causes the table to erupt in peals of laughter. The short boy tries and fails to hide his blush by glaring at his half siblings and verbally lashing out at them, only for the campers to laugh even more and tease him affectionately. While the Apollo siblings are calming the firecracker down, Lee decides to make an introduction for the occupied demigod.

"The shorty with the prickly attitude is Micheal Yew. He's a good kid, but he's got quite the mouth on him. Try not to take his words to harshly, he doesn't mean any harm with them."

"Noted." Max says, leaning in to whisper her own warning. "Iggy is going through some sort of rebellious phase as well, so try not to take him seriously when he's angry either. He's just lashing out because he's frustrated or something."

"Noted." Lee parrots with a smile. Max mirrors the smile and blinks in surprise when Chiron's booming voice calls for order. Lee calmly calls for silence at table seven while Max shushes her own winged charges. Once the dining pavilion is quiet, Chiron begins the speech.

"Firstly, Mr. D and I would like to welcome our new camper, Perseus Jackson, and his family. They are unsure how long they would like to stay here, but be friendly and patient with them regardless of their decisions, okay?"

As the campers clap their acceptance of the centaur's words, Chiron looks off to table 12 and raises his eyebrows in question. Mr. D gives a a short shake of his head, having welcomed them before and seeing no need for him to be the one to congratulate the half blood on his victory that day, so Chiron shakes his head and continues.

"We must also give a cheer for Percy and his family, for without their help, we may not have been able to get rid of that horde of monsters before the barrier fell. Cheers to Percy for defeating the Minotaur and cheers to his family for risking their lives to fight the monsters beyond the border of Camp Half-Blood."

"Cheers!" The camp yells while thrusting their goblets into the air.

"And cheers to all of you for keeping our home safe and intact."

"Cheers!" This time, the yell was louder and more boisterous, having the flock chime in as well.

"So, without further ado, enjoy your meal."

With that, the campers dove into their food. Dinner went well, with the flock dividing to make friends with the children of Apollo while wolfing down their fruits, veggies, bread, cheese, and wood nymph made barbeque. Iggy found entertainment with bickering with Micheal while Gazzy made friends with a young boy named Austin. Nudge and Angel chat with a sweet young girl named Kayla and Max, Fang, and Kai talk with Lee and Will for most of the meal.

After dinner, Chiron trots over to check on the flock.

"What do you think of camp so far?"

"This place is wonderful. Except for the attack earlier, it almost seems like a paradise." Max praises, hiding her slight unease with a smile. Considering the struggles her dysfunctional family has gone through, it's no wonder that the falcon winged leader is tensed and ready for everything to hit the metaphorical fan. If Chiron sees her nervousness, he makes no outward suggestion that he did.

"Wonderful. The campers are splitting up to attend their last class of the day before an hour of sing alongs with the Apollo cabin and bed time. You are welcome to sit in on any classes if the instructor doesn't mind and are encouraged to go to the sing along, but if you wish to retire for the evening, that is fine as well."

"The sing alongs and classes sound great, but a lot has happened today, so we should talk as a family about everything that's happened and get to bed early." Max declines with a regretful smile.

"Understandable." Chiron acquiesces with a nod of his head. "No worries. The offer still stands for tomorrow, if you are still interested. You will be sleeping in the infirmary while staying here, since we have no guest quarters at the moment. Would you like to be escorted back to the Big House?"

"No, we'll be fine. Thank you for the offer though."

"Very well. The door in the back of the infirmary leads to a bath for long term patient use and there are clothes and towels in the drawers on each side. Feel free to use both, and don't worry about damaging the clothes. If you need to cut holes in the shirts for your wings, that's fine. We have plenty of clothes to replace them with."

"We will. Goodnight." Max says.

"Goodnight!" The flock parrots.

"Goodnight." Chiron says with a smile and nod, before galloping off to teach his last class for the day.

"Do we really have to turn in so early?" Iggy complains once the group of seven are out of hearing range of the campers and mythological creatures working around them. "I mean, the sun just recently set, and don't tell me it didn't. I could feel the drop in temperature."

"I wasn't going to say that." Max says tiredly. "We don't have to go to sleep right away, but we do have to talk and wash up before going to bed. We have the rare chance to wash in warm water. Let's not waste it."

"Oh, a nice hot bath sounds amazing right now!" Nudge exclaims, almost levitating with how much she was squirming around in excitement. Fang smiles at this and glances at his leader.

"Hey boss, how about a race back to the Big House?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

Before anyone could say 'last one to the house has to stay in a room with a gassy Gazzy for five minutes', Max and Fang rocket into the air with the five remaining flock members close behind them. This is, until Max get's a sudden burst in speed and is tumbling to the ground in front of the Big House before she could even blink.

"Max! Are you okay?" Fang questions worriedly as he lands in front of her a few minutes later. The flock is visible behind him, touching down seconds after he kneels in front of his fallen friend.

"I think so. I just tumbled a bit when I landed because I was surprised. What exactly happened?"

"You suddenly flew so fast you disappeared. I've never seen you fly so fast before." Angel marvels.

"That's because I've never flown that fast. I didn't even mean to fly that fast just now." Max admits.

"I wonder how you were able to fly that fast?" Nudge wonders.

'Maybe it was your avian DNA?' Kai suggests.

"My avian DNA? Do you know what bird I'm fused with, Kai?" Max questions curiously.

'Maybe. I got curious one day a few years ago and decided to research various types of birds, and one of the ones that had wings like yours was a peregrine falcon. They are one of the fastest creatures in the world, being able to fly 250-300 miles an hour. That super sonic speed you just achieved confirmed it.'

"Huh. Interesting." Max murmurs. "I'll have to research tomorrow. For now, let's shower. I don't know about you guys, but I'd like to change out of these filthy clothes. I've been wearing them since I left Dr. Martinez's place."

"Agreement!" Nudge cheers as she hurries into the large baby blue and white house they stood in front of. The rest of the flock smile and run after the chatterbox.

"Who get's to use the shower first?" Angel questions as the children reach the infirmary.

"Let's see what the set up is first, then decide." Max says after a ponderous pause. Fang nods at this and strides to the other side of the room, disappearing for a few minutes before coming back smiling as he glances through the newly opened doorway.

"We can all take a bath at the same time, there is one bath separated by a single wall in the middle big enough for all of us."

"Seriously?!" The flock exclaim in unison. Fang smirks at the reaction and points his thumb over his shoulder at the unseen bath.

"Come look for yourselves. We'll have to split into two groups because it's not a unisex bath, but it's definitely big enough for all of us."

The flock follow Fang and Max while they go down curving hallways with creative murals (painted by the Apollo cabin, most likely) to walk into mirroring sides of a bath.

Fang was right. The bath was a much smaller and simpler version of the grand bath houses most thought of when the words came to mind, but it was still impressive. The room was a square, like most rooms, but a few meters from each wall is a line of Greek columns even spaced with wide arches connecting them to each other and the ceiling. In the middle of these arches is the bath, separated down the middle by a short but effective wall, allowing the opposite sexes their privacy and still giving them the chances to communicate and enjoy the skylight directly above the bath. The walls were decorated by more murals of various topics and skills, presumably by the Apollo cabin, being the ones that maintain the infirmary and whose father is god of the arts.

"Wow, this place is incredible!" Nudge squeals, already racing over to the cupboards to find a change of clothes and a towel.

"Yeah! The paintings and skylight are awesome!" Gazzy agrees from the men's side as he follows Nudges example.

"If this is what their infirmary bath looks like, I can't wait to see their regular bath house." Angel adds.

"Do they have a bath house?" Iggy questions doubtfully, a little put off by the fact that he can't see what everyone is so amazed about. "I don't remember Grover mentioning one when he gave us a tour earlier."

Kai taps Iggy on his arm, getting enough of his attention to hold out his hand. The mute boy carefully traces words onto the strawberry blond boy's palm while Iggy repeats his words aloud to make sure Kai is not misunderstood.

"'While it's possible that each cabin has their own baths, I highly doubt that is the case because of the sheer amount of kids that have to fit in those cabins. Our tour was interrupted by those Ares girls and the monster attack, so we probably just never made it to the bath house or whatever they use.' Oh yeah, we were interrupted. We'll have to ask about the bathing system tomorrow, I guess."

"Just get in the bath already! It feels amazing!" Nudge shouts from the women's side, her movements careful to avoid soaking her bandages. Angel, who had hopped in soon after the caramel skinned preteen, cheers in agreement.

"It does feel really good. I think this comes from a hot spring."

"Really?" Max questions, striding over to the side of the bath and sticking her hand in the water. "I think you're right. It feels almost like a hot tub, but the chemical scent is more of an earth smell than chlorine. Why didn't I notice until now."

"You were probably just too distracted by other things." Fang suggests from the other side as he strips out of his dirty clothes. "This is the perfect opportunity for you to unwind, O Fearless Leader."

Max hums in agreement at this, slipping into the water after she makes sure everyone else is enjoying themselves. They take their time with the bath, knowing that they will have to get serious again once they are done. Max can't help but stay tense at first, but after a while of scrubbing herself and the other girls clean and taking turns preening their wings, the vigilant leader allows herself to relax against the side of the bath and admire the full moon in the open air hot spring.

She is still admiring the moon a few minutes later when a shooting star streaks above the glowing moon. As it disappears, Max finds herself closing her eyes and making a wish, a wish that her flock will always stay this safe and happy. It was a foolish, unrealistic wish, but her family's happiness and safety is what she wanted more than anything in the world, and if wishing upon a falling star will help her case, well, she'll need all the help she can get so she might as well try.

End Chapter 8

Songs

I Don't Care, I Ship It by notliterally (also an amazing AMV by Vivifx)

Adiemus by Adiemus

Earth Song by Frank Tichelli

Hikari no Senritsu by Kalafina (Sound of the Sky)

I See Fire by Ed Sheeran

Shadows by Red

Håll Om Mig (Hold Me Now) by Nanne Grӧnvall (also a great Princess Tutu AMV)

Explosive by Bond

Understanding by Yoshihisa Hirano (Hunter x Hunter 2011)

Welcome to Night Vale (podcast by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor)


End file.
